Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL (By Order)

Read the Third time and passed.

MCDERMOTT SCOTLAND ORDER CONFIRMATION

Mr. William Ross presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order under Section 8 of the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act 1936, relating to McDermott Scotland; and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Tuesday 15th July, and to be printed. [Bill 196.]

Oral Answers to Questions — WALES

Housing Subsidies

Mr. Wigley: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what is the latest available estimate of the cost to the central Government of (a) construction of new local authority housing in Wales, and (b) the repairs and maintenance of local authority housing in Wales for the current financial year; and how these figures compare with corresponding ones for 1974–75.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Alec Jones): £21·98 million is to be provided by the Welsh Office towards the cost of construction of new local authority housing in 1975–76. The Housing Rents and Subsidies Act 1975 does not provide for subsidising repairs and maintenance incurred in 1975–76.
For 1974–75 central Government housing subsidies, for local authority new house construction and repairs and maintenance, are estimated at about £17 million. It is not possible to apportion this between the two headings.

Mr. Wigley: Is the Minister aware that there are considerable misgivings in many parts of Wales about a cut-back in the amount of money available for the maintenance and repair of council properties, and that in my constituency this has had,


a severe effect on schemes that were to go ahead? Can he assure us that if a cutback has to take place at all, it will be no greater than the 17 per cent. cutback referred to by the Secretary of State on 16th June in a debate on housing, and that every effort will be made to ensure that the areas that most need the money will get the money that is available?

Mr. Alec Jones: The problem of improving old houses which have been acquired by local authorities is a considerable one which causes concern throughout Wales, to my right hon. and learned Friend and to myself. One reason why the circular was issued was to enable us to stop the present position, to examine it and to see what we can do to improve the especially difficult areas.

Sir Raymond Gower: Can the Minister tell us whether the figure for new houses constructed includes houses which were originally intended to be for private ownership and which have been acquired by various authorities? If so, can he tell us whether those are broadly on the same price levels or cost the same to local authorities as those which they plan in the normal way?

Mr. Alec Jones: No. The £21·9 million is the amount provided for the cost of construction of new houses.

Mr. Wyn Roberts: Can the Minister assure us that the £21·9 million will result in the Government reaching their target for housing construction? Is he aware that the housing situation is now desperate and that complaints are coming in from all parts of the Principality?

Mr. Alec Jones: I am certainly aware of the housing problem in Wales. Perhaps the best reply I can give to the hon. Gentleman is to indicate to him that public sector starts for the first four months of 1975 were 3,398, which is a considerable improvement on the corresponding period last year when only 1,979 were started. If the Conservative Party, when in office had done a little more, we might not be in such a bad situation as we are today.

European Community

Mr. Geraint Howells: asked the Secretary of State for Wales how his policies for Wales will be affected by the results of the referendum.

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Morris): I shall continue to do my utmost to ensure that Wales derives maximum benefit from our continued membership of the Community.

Mr. Howells: In view of the serious economic situation of the country, can the Secretary of State give an assurance that the Welsh Development Agency and the Welsh Assembly proposals will not be shelved until 1980 or later?

Mr. Morris: Certainly.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Without going into detail at this stage, can my right hon. and learned Friend give the House an assurance that he has officials who are constantly working and studying the position to ensure that Wales derives the maximum benefit by way of grants and loans from all the Community funds? Moreover, against the background of our present economic difficulties does he agree that this is more important than ever before?

Mr. Morris: Yes. I immediately reassure my right hon. Friend that the other day the Commission made it clear that allegations that we were not getting what was due to us were wholly unfounded. Indeed, my officials are constantly travelling between Britain and Brussels. There is one there today and he will also be there tomorrow. He was also there last Monday and Tuesday. Two senior officials were in Brussels on 18th and 19th June and further visits are being arranged.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Will the Secretary of State urge his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to reject completely Mr. Lardinois' milk policy, which would be especially disastrous for Welsh farmers and would involve a cut-back for winter milk? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman also aware that this would mean that Welsh farmers will have paid a crippling price for continued membership of the Common Market?

Mr. Morris: I take note of the hon. Gentleman's remarks and I shall certainly convey them to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who I am sure will do his utmost to ensure that Welsh agriculture is fully, properly and adequately protected.

Mr. Biffen: Is the Secretary of State aware that many Welsh farmers market their sheep and lambs in Oswestry Market? Is he further aware of the importance of sheep and lambs in the rural economy of Wales? In the light of that, will he take this opportunity to indicate to the House what are the main desirable characteristics he would like to see written into the Community regime that is promised for sheep?

Mr. Morris: There is no need for me to tell the hon. Gentleman that I am deeply conscious, for family reasons, of the importance of Oswestry as a marketing centre. I assure him that in due course my right hon. Friend will be making a statement to the House and representations on the very subject about which he has spoken.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Wales in what ways Wales is to be represented in the institutions of the EEC.

Mr. John Morris: The interests of Wales, which is part of the United Kingdom, are fully safeguarded through our membership of the Community.

Mr. Evans: Is the Secretary of State aware that his reply is totally unsatisfactory, especially in view of the fact that small countries in Europe, like Denmark, Ireland and even Luxembourg, have permanent representation in the institutions of the EEC, members in the Council of Ministers and the Commission and an adequate quota of members in the important committees, such as the Economic and Social Affairs Committee? Is he aware that Ireland has 10 members in the European Parliament and Luxembourg has six while Wales has none? Does he not accept that this is due to the fact that those countries have full national status, and will he join with us in pressing for full national status for Wales?

Mr. Morris: My statement may be unacceptable to the hon. Gentleman but I am sure it is not unacceptable to the people of Wales. The hon. Gentleman's remarks amounted to a demand for separation and an independent Wales. The other countries he mentioned are separate and independent. The last time this matter was put to the test in Wales, his party received the votes of only 10·7 per

cent. of the electorate, and that figure went down marginally in three successive General Elections.

Mr. Anderson: Why has the Welsh Office no officials on the United Kingdom delegation in Brussels when there are officials from other Government Departments?

Mr. Morris: In the post-referendum period I am anxious to ensure that we improve the contacts which already exist between the whole of the United Kingdom, particularly Wales, and Brussels. This is a matter which I shall consider. I want to emphasise that my officials are in Brussels this week, were there last week and have been there in recent months. There is a constant interchange between my officials and various departments in Brussels.

School Leavers (Employment)

Sir A. Meyer: asked the Secretary of States for Wales what projects he proposes to initiate under the special powers now available to him in order to provide useful occupation for school leavers who are unable to find employment at the present time.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Barry Jones): The powers my right hon. and learned Friend has assumed under the Industry Act 1972 do not enable him to initiate such schemes. However, we will use these powers to the full to create new employment opportunities generally, thereby increasing the jobs available for school leavers.

Sir A. Meyer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the number of unemployed school leavers has reached an unacceptably high level even before the end of the school year? What is the outlook for school leavers who will be leaving in the next few days for finding a reasonable job? Is this what the Labour Party meant when it talked about getting Britain back to work? Is it not time that the Secretary of State admitted that the number of unemployed now and the even greater number to be expected next year are due solely to the failure of this Government to tackle the problem of inflation by telling the people that unless they accept a cut in their living standards now they will be without a job next year?

Mr. Barry Jones: The hon. Gentleman is scraping the barrel on this one. I stress that the Government inherited a miserably stagnated economy from the previous administration and that the Government are currently engaged on the major issue of organising a strategy to defeat inflation.
With regard to the hon. Gentleman's own locality, I looked at the figures relating to North-East Wales. They are not good enough. The present Government regard unemployment as something to be defeated and they will take every measure possible to do so—for example, the Community Industry Scheme, the contingency plans of the Training Services Agency and the Training Award Scheme. These are schemes announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and they are making a positive contribution to getting rid of school-leaving unemployment.

Mr. Anderson: Will my hon. Friend, together with the Department of Employment, direct attention to the decline in the number of apprenticeships in Wales, particularly in the construction and engineering industries in the present recession, so that this country will be prepared for the expected upturn in the economy when it occurs?

Mr. Barry Jones: Yes, I can take that on board. I have mentioned the Training Award Scheme. This is designed to keep the young off the streets and out of the dole queue by, for example, giving a £15 a week tax-free grant so that youngsters can have an apprenticeship training scheme for one year.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: If I may take up that last point, is the Under-Secretary aware that in 1972 his fellow Under-Secretary said that he felt especially strongly about school leavers and in the course of a debate put forward specific proposals designed to deal with that situation, and that that was at a time when unemployment was lower than it is now? Will the hon. Gentleman assure me that he will take up those proposals? Does he share the view that his hon. Friend expressed at that time that the unemployment figures are an absolute condemnation of the Government and of their policy?

Mr. Barry Jones: I have already outlined the way in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment intends to tackle the problem in Wales with regard to school-leaving unemployment. As for the hon. Gentleman's quotation of a remark by a colleague of mine, the record of the previous administration in 1972 was a miserable one.

Local Authority Mortgages

Mr. Anderson: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the present position with regard to the granting of local authority mortgages within Wales.

Mr. Alec Jones: My right hon. and learned Friend has suspended local authority mortgage lending for the time being. This and the withdrawal of the general consent to acquire dwellings will enable us to reassess expenditure levels in the housing budget and make any necessary adjustments in the light of the overall housing expenditure situation.

Mr. Anderson: Is my hon. Friend aware that a continuation of this suspension will have a most devastating effect on housing stress, particularly in our older industrial areas, because authorities like my own in Swansea have directed mortgages at the older terrace-type property which building societies will not touch? Therefore, will my hon. Friend try to make this suspension as brief as possible, relax it early and, more particularly, initiate discussions with building societies in Wales in the hope that some building society funds can be channelled into this sector which currently the building societies will not enter?

Mr. Alec Jones: I assure my hon. Friend that I appreciate that local authority mortgage lending is a very necessary service in Wales, particularly in older industrial areas like his and the constituency that I represent. We hope that the suspensions need last for only a short while to enable us to know exactly how much money has been committed to this sector The problem facing us is that we do not know how much money has been committed to this sphere.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning the building societies. I am already arranging to have discussions to see whether building societies can advance


money in areas which up to now they have sought to avoid.

Mr. Grist: Did the Minister actually say that the Government were not aware of the amount of money spent in this sector? Is he aware that what his hon. Friend just said makes one wonder why the Government persist in allowing councils to proceed to purchase enormous numbers of privately-built houses?

Mr. Alec Jones: I said "committed". I followed the pattern followed by the previous Government. On this question of mortgage lending, we are not in a position to know exactly how much local authorities have committed to this purpose. If we intend, as I believe we should, to allocate our finance to the areas of greatest need, it is essential for us to know the individual commitments of each local authority in Wales.

Mr. Wigley: Is the Under-Secretary aware—I am sure that representing Rhondda he is—of the great discrepancy between the percentage of owner-occupiers in many parts of Wales and the pattern that may be prevalent in the London area and most of England? For that reason, will he press that we should have policies that respond to these different circumstances, particularly in this instance, so that money can be available for mortgages through the councils for older houses which cannot get money from building societies rather than that all the money is piled up on new housing projects when there may not be land in many parts of Wales for such projects?

Mr. Alec Jones: It is because we are aware of that point and of the essential differences between the housing needs of Wales and those of England that the policies for Wales do not follow the pattern in England. The hon. Gentleman may be aware that my right hon. Friend responsible for housing in England transferred one-third of the money available for this sort of purpose from home loan mortgages to improvements. We do not believe that this is necessarily the right thing to do for Wales.

Employment (Gwynedd)

Mr. Wyn Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he is aware of the threat to the employment of road workers and Crosville employees in

Gwynedd; and what steps he proposes to take to alleviate the situation.

Mr. John Morris: I am aware of these difficulties in the council's area, but I understand that no formal decisions on job losses have yet been taken.

Mr. Roberts: Bearing in mind that Gwynedd is the fourth highest rated county in England and Wales and that it is therefore contributing very considerably from local resources, is it not clear that the transport grant and the rate support grant for Gwynedd are totally inadequate?

Mr. Morris: We have had this discussion in the course of the year. The rate support grant for Wales and for Gwynedd is very high. Having regard to the particular point of the transport supplementary grant, which is perhaps of more immediate concern to the hon. Gentleman, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport has already told local authorities that in our consideration of the allocation of this grant for 1976–77 priority will be given to proposals to provide or maintain minimum public transport services in less densely populated areas. I hope that this will be welcomed by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Wigley: Does not the Secretary of State realise that the statement which he has just made is totally unacceptable to the people of Gwynedd for the coming year, since workers on road schemes in Gwynedd and those employed by the bus companies will be made redundant this year and money next year or the year after will be too late for many of them? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman understand that the increase in rate support grant for Gwynedd which he announced before Christmas, which was 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. below the average increase for England and Wales, was unsatisfactory and insufficient and that something must be done to prevent the redundancies which are now facing our county?

Mr. Morris: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that the planning of transport services and the allocation of resources within Gwynedd is a matter for Gwynedd itself. I certainly do not accept the hon. Gentleman's statement, but I say to him, as I have said before—I do not have the exact figures here with me—that the


higher proportion of general rate support grant to Wales in relation to that for England includes the figure for Gwynedd itself, which is very high, probably one of the highest in Wales.

Mr. Roberts: Will the Secretary of State agree to look again at the whole problem of our rural counties with above-average road mileages to maintain?

Mr. Morris: I am always ready to look in relation to future years at the possibility of increasing whatever resources are available in order to ensure that those in greatest need have as adequate access to public finance as is possible. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is now advocating an increase in public expenditure. If he is, perhaps he will make his position clear.

Schools (Truancy)

Mr. Michael Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will institute an inquiry into the problem of truancy in Welsh schools.

Mr. Barry Jones: A departmental working group has already reported to my right hon. and learned Friend on absenteeism from the schools of Wales. The Welsh Joint Education Committee, teachers' associations and others are now being consulted about this report, which deals with truancy as well as other forms of absenteeism.

Mr. Roberts: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the truancy statistics which seem to have shocked the journalists came as no surprise whatever to masters and mistresses in Welsh comprehensive schools? Will he now try to ascertain the cause of truancy, and will he look at the raising of the school leaving age to see whether that is a major cause?

Mr. Barry Jones: I recognise the seriousness of the figures shown in the report. I regard truancy as a distress call and as a missed opportunity to prepare oneself for life. There is no complacency whatever in the Welsh Office on this matter. We shall treat it with urgency and consult widely, returning to the House with measures to get rid of the bad figures which presently exist.

Sir Raymond Gower: In view of the anxious concern expressed by many experienced teachers in many parts of

Wales, especially in the pressure areas, the larger urban conurbations and so on, can the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that his right hon. and learned Friend and all who are involved in the Welsh Office will treat this matter with the utmost urgency with a view to examining and implementing this report at the earliest possible date?

Mr. Barry Jones: I give that assurance. I can tell the hon. Gentleman also that the South Glamorgan local education authority has itself, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Social Services, initiated a study, and I am awaiting that report as well. I am fully apprised of the correlation between urban areas and high rates of truancy. Finally, I must stress the extreme importance of the contribution that parents can make in this matter.

Road Programme

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list his current order of priority for schemes in the Welsh road building programme in the light of reduced public expenditure.

Mr. Barry Jones: We are giving priority to the M4 motorway and Britannia Bridge schemes. The order of priority of other schemes is being reviewed.

Mr. Hughes: I am a little perturbed by that reply, notwithstanding my personal interest in the M4 motorway. Against the background of questions about the road programme in Gwynedd and the rural areas, will my hon. Friend give a categorical assurance that the resources which are available for road building will be spread equitably throughout the whole of Wales and not be concentrated on one or two schemes?

Mr. Barry Jones: Our overall priority in the short term is completion of the M4 motorway. Thereafter, such resources as are available—or the majority of them—will be switched to the A55. I stress again that the Britannia Bridge project is to go ahead. Moreover, throughout Wales schemes under £1 million will also go ahead.

Sir A. Meyer: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the fairly extensive improvements which are now taking place on the English side of the border on roads into North Wales, coupled with the total failure so far to make further progress


with the improvement of the A55, will make the traffic problem along the A55 very much worse in a year or so as the larger flow of traffic comes sweeping into North Wales to meet the congestion which it will there encounter?

Mr. Barry Jones: I take the point which the hon. Gentleman made in his opening words, but I think that he exaggerates the problem in relation to the A55, because there have recently been some very good improvement schemes there.

Mr. Anderson: May I, on behalf of West Wales, pay tribute to the Secretary of State for his achievement in preserving the priority of the M4, which is the key to our industrial development?

Mr. Barry Jones: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I recollect that he himself made a contribution in that respect in an Adjournment debate on the M4 in April.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that between 1966 and 1970 the then Labour Government in successive years reduced expenditure on Welsh roads, at a time when they were increasing expenditure on roads in England by no less than 150 per cent.? Will the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and learned Friend do their utmost in these circumstances to resist any major cuts on Welsh roads at present?

Mr. Barry Jones: The Government's record here is good. We are well aware of the need for good road communications in Wales, especially with reference to the need to safeguard and enhance the provision of jobs.

Opencast Mining

Mr. Abse: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions have taken place between his Department and the National Coal Board relating to the environmental aspects of opencast mining in South Wales; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Alec Jones: Both under the Opencast Coal Act 1958 and under the Countryside Act 1968 there are obligations on the National Coal Board and the Government to have regard to environmental issues in dealing with opencast proposals. This is a matter to which

we shall give close attention when we are consulted.

Mr. Abse: In view of the likelihood of our entire energy programme being modified by North Sea oil, is it not time that greater weight was given to the environmental disasters which this type of mining precipitates in South Wales? Will the Minister give an assurance that if the National Coal Board proceeds with its present proposals at Abersychan, which would ravage our eastern valley, and if the Torfaen council objects, a public inquiry will be held at which the people of Abersychan will be able to demonstrate and explain their unremitting hostility to the present proposals?

Mr. Alec Jones: I give an assurance that if the National Coal Board makes application for this sort of development at Abersychan and there are objections by Torfaen or by the county council, a public local inquiry will be necessary and will be held. Moreover, such an inquiry would be necessary if there were a substantial volume of objection from other sources as well.

Unemployed Persons

Sir Raymond Gower: asked the Secretary of State for Wales what representations he has received about the increase in the number of unemployed in Wales, and the fewer job vacancies now available in the Principality.

Mr. John Morris: The Welsh Council has expressed its concern to me, and I am aware of the concern of many other organisations in Wales.

Sir Raymond Gower: Does the Secretary of State recall that he and his colleagues used to assail Conservative Governments month in and month out, and year in and year out, over a very long time when there were far fewer unemployed than there are at present and many more vacancies? Can he imagine the sort of outcry there would have been if a Conservative Government had published such dismal statistics as his Government recently published?

Mr. Morris: Certainly, we face a serious situation, and the hon. Gentleman is right to recognise that. I am confident that the measures indicated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week will ensure that we tackle the serious


problems which face us all—problems about which I warned the House on the first Welsh day last year, when I said that things would get worse before they got better, in view of our inheritance from the previous Government.

Mr. Wigley: Is the Secretary of State aware that we have recently lost a major industrial project which would have given us many jobs in Caernarvon? Is he aware that there were two main reasons, inadequate road network and the cost of water? Is he further aware that there has been an astronomical increase in the cost of water for industry and did he know that a firm in my constituency, Bryncir Woollen Mills, last year paid £54 for water and this year has received a bill for £17,000? In the light of that sort of proposed increase and the effect it has on employment, can the Secretary of State say when he expects to be able to announce the findings of the Daniel Committee?

Mr. Morris: The Conservative Party set up the Welsh Water Authority and the present board operates under the same Act. It might have been as well if the hon. Member had remembered this when he supported the main Opposition on Thursday in attempting to defeat the Government on the Industry Bill.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Does the Secretary of State think that because he warned of dangers, that is an excuse for the present situation? Does he recall that in 1972 he said that Wales would not tolerate a level of unemployment which was a good deal lower than it is now? Does he think that the people of Wales will tolerate that level because it has been caused by the policies of his Government?

Mr. Morris: The unemployment figures are grave. I do not, and never have attempted to, minimise the gravity of the situation. Measures are being taken to tackle inflation and I hope that they will be supported by all hon. Members.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the hon. Member for Caernarvon (Mr. Wigley) made a very serious charge when he said that a major industry had failed to come to North Wales? I think he was referring to Glaxo, Can my right hon. and learned

Friend look at this matter and perhaps talk to the firm's chairman and directors and find out why it failed to come to this area of high unemployment?

Mr. Morris: I will do that. This issue arose before I took over certain industrial powers on 1st July, but it is right to examine cases where industry is lost. No one is more aware than I of the inadequate road communications in North Wales, but I think it is right to concentrate on certain priorities and get one job properly done at a time to avoid the pepperpot road pattern which exists throughout North and South Wales.

Economic Policy

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will ask the Welsh Council to report on the impact of the Government's economic policies on the Welsh economy.

Mr. John Morris: The council discussed these issues at its meeting on 12th May and the chairman subsequently wrote to me. I met a deputation from the council on 30th June for further discussions.

Mr. Edwards: Having achieved simultaneously through his policies the highest level of unemployment in Wales for 35 years and a record rate of inflation, does the Secretary of State now expect that his policies will cause unemployment to rise or fall in the coming months?

Mr. Morris: I think it is right to expect unemployment to rise in the coming months.

M4 Motorway

Mr. Grist: asked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give the latest estimated date for the completion of the M4 motorway; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Barry Jones: About 30 miles should be under construction by the end of the year, and most of the motorway should be completed by the end of 1977, but the Bridgend Northern bypass and the Castleton-Coryton sections are unlikely to be finished before late 1979. The section between Baglan and Lonlas is in the initial stages of preparation and it is too early to forecast a completion date.

Mr. Grist: Is the Minister aware that there is a cynical view in South Wales that this completion date is for ever receding into the distance? When may we expect the results and findings of the inquiry into the section bypassing Cardiff?

Mr. Barry Jones: I think that the hon. Gentleman's cynicism is a little misplaced. The inspector's report on the Castleton to Coryton section has been received by my Department.

Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Does the Under-Secretary agree that the date has slipped back under successive Governments and that it is disappointing that it is now even later? Can he give us any date for the completion of the extension work on the Carmarthen bypass and the dual carriageway to St. Clears, which is of equal importance to my constituency and to developments which may take place in the Celtic Sea?

Mr. Barry Jones: I take on board the importance of any development in the Celtic Sea. We envisage the terminal point of the M4 at Pont Abraham and a much improved road to St. Clears on the A40 and A48.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDUSTRY

Aircraft (Sales to America)

Mr. Whitehead: asked the Secretary of State for Industry what plans he has for increased British penetration of the American civil aircraft market.

The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. Gerald Kaufman): The United States is our best customer for aerospace products, taking one-third of our aerospace exports in 1974, worth about £192 million. We shall continue ever effort to improve on this and consolidate our already strong position in the aero-engine and equipment fields.

Mr. Whitehead: May I congratulate my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend on the considerable Government support for the 524 engine and its penetration of the American market through the Boeing company? Is he aware that the McDonnel-Douglas company is the third major manufacturer expressing interest in this engine? Will the Government be prepared to consider sympathetically any request for a similar adaptation from this

third manufacturer? Will my hon. Friend also say to everyone in my constituency, managements and unions alike, that taxpayers' money is involved and there are no additional resources for the kind of wage bargaining now going on at Rolls-Royce?

Mr. Kaufman: It is not for me to get involved in wage bargaining questions. On my hon. Friend's other question, this is one of the benefits of the wise public ownership of Rolls-Royce carried out by the Conservative Party.

Mr. Adley: In view of the Under-Secretary's new responsibilities, does he not agree that one of the main features of attempts to sell aircraft in the United States is the natural opposition and competition from the American aircraft manufacturing industry? If Europe is to succeed in penetrating this market and holding its own market, does he agree that all Ministers in European Governments must take positive steps towards a European aerospace policy, and will he make a specific point of setting his sights on this target?

Mr. Kaufman: By the vote of the British people last month, we are members of the EEC and we are always prepared to consider co-operation with our European allies. On the question of aerospace equipment to the United States, we had 37 per cent. of its import market last year compared with France's 7·5 per cent., Germany's 6·8 per cent. and Italy's 4 per cent. We are not doing too badly.

Mr. Tom King: Does the Minister appreciate that penetration of the United States market and other markets has been greatly damaged by the uncertainty created by the Government's nationalisation proposals? What is happening to help aircraft companies in this uncertain situation, particularly with respect to performance guarantees on future contracts?

Mr. Kaufman: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made perfectly clear what the interim position will be until the Bill is enacted, which will be as soon as possible. If the hon. Member thinks that the delay in achieving public ownership is causing uncertainty, if he would agree to the Bill going through the Second Reading procedure we could make it law this Session.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL SERVICE

Employment Relocation (Consultation)

Mr. Pattie: asked the Minister for the Civil Service whether he is satisfied with the consultation procedures for Civil Service personnel who are being asked to change their place of work.

The Minister of State, Civil Service Department (Mr. Charles R. Morris): Yes, Sir. The Civil Service Department has a joint committee with the national staff side for the discussion of dispersal problems. Dispersing Departments similarly are in close touch with their departmental staff sides.

Mr. Pattie: Does the Minister agree that there are certain specialised skills in the Civil Service which often have limited alternative opportunities in the private sector, and that it seems very unfair if such people are forced to relocate when it might be inconvenient for them to do so for family or personal reasons? Is he aware that they are then in a position of having to resign from the Civil Service without redundancy benefit and without adequate alternative employment?

Mr. Morris: Non-mobile grades—clerical officers and grades below and their equivalents—will not be required to disperse but may volunteer to do so. As for mobile grades of staff above the executive officer and equivalent level, it is the Government's intention that where possible they should be transferred only on a voluntary basis, but in some cases there will be no work of the same type left in London after dispersal. This is a fact of life which the Government are seeking to deal with.

Mr. John Garrett: Has my hon. Friend consulted the staff of his Department and of Her Majesty's Stationery Office in Norwich about the apparently obstructive attitude towards the expansion of public service opportunities in Norwich by the Norwich County Council?

Mr. Morris: The issue to which my hon. Friend referred is a matter of concern to the Civil Service Department. We were grateful for the action which my hon. Friend took in drawing public attention to this particular difficulty.

Mr. Jessel: What is the point of consultation if the Government do not intend to pay the slightest heed to the wishes of the people consulted? Is it not clear that the Government intend to move the directorate of Overseas Surveys to Glasgow although the people who work in it wish to stay in London?

Mr. Morris: I do not wish to give the impression that the Government as an employer are impervious to the wishes and understandable domestic difficulties which civil servants in London who are subject to dispersal are likely to encounter as a consequence of the dispersal policy. However, the Government have a responsibility to the nation in relation to the dispersal of Civil Service posts. Their policy is to disperse 31,000 Civil Service posts over the next 10 years.

Mr. Grimond: As the Government are committed within the fairly near future to setting up an Assembly in Edinburgh, what consultation is going on about the rundown of the London Civil Service in that event? Is it intended that personnel should be transferred from London to Edinburgh?

Mr. Morris: Any final arrangements for the creation of a separate Civil Service in connection with the establishment of the Assembly in Scotland will have to await the working out of the constitutional framework.

Mr. Crawford: There is an obvious solution to the points raised by the hon. Members for Chertsey and Walton (Mr. Pattie) and Twickenham (Mr. Jessel), and that is to provide Civil Service job opportunities in Scotland, particularly Glasgow. The people of Scotland will not be too happy about the remarks of the two hon. Members because Scottish families have been unrooted for decade after decade.

Mr. Morris: It is because we are concerned about the unemployment situation in Glasgow, Merseyside, the North-East and elsewhere that we are determined to honour our commitment to disperse the Civil Service to these regional locations.

Pensions

Mr. Hicks: asked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will consider introducing amending legislation to the


Pensions (Increase) Act 1974 to allow special supplements on lump sums for those public servants who retired after December 1972.

Mr. Charles R. Morris: No, Sir. The purpose of the 1974 Act was to ensure that those retiring after December 1972 on salaries affected by the 1972–73 counter-inflation measures did not, as a result of the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971 arrangements, receive for the rest of their lives pensions below those of colleagues with the same pattern of service who had retired immediately before the introduction of those measures. Lump sums were not affected in the same way. No one retiring in the period in question would have received a smaller lump sum than a predecessor with the same pattern of service.

Mr. Hicks: Does the Minister agree that those living on fixed incomes and who retired during this period comprise one of the sections of society which are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of inflation? In this respect does he not agree that the Government have a responsibility to their former employees?

Mr. Morris: I do not disagree with the hon. Member about the difficulties facing those living on fixed incomes. However, conceding supplements on lump sums would involve accepting the principle of notional rates of pay, which is something that successive Governments and the Inland Revenue Department have been reluctant to do.

Mr. Tomlinson: Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends would be outraged if the Government took the steps suggested by Conservative Members at a time when we are seeking to curb public expenditure. Is my hon. Friend aware that this suggestion comes very low in the order of priorities for public expenditure?

Mr. Morris: I shall bear that point in mind.

Mr. Lawson: Will the Minister review the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971? Is he satisfied with the way it is working? Is he aware that it gives all former public servants inflation-proof pensions which no private pension scheme could possibly afford to give? Does he agree that the capital value of these pensions for some

civil servants runs into six figures, which is far in excess of what was originally intended?

Mr. Morris: The hon. Member is suggesting that the inflation-proofing of Civil Service pensions was not intended. I can tell him only that the legislation was put on the statute book by the Conservatives. As for whether the Government are satisfied, we recognise that we have an obligation to retired civil servants in this regard.

Government Departments (Relocation)

Mr. Hooey: asked the Minister for the Civil Service what steps are being taken to redress the imbalance in the number of civil servants of central Government Departments employed in the various economic regions of England outside the South-East.

Mr. Charles R. Morris: As my hon. Friend knows, we announced last year an intensive programme for the relocation of Civil Service work away from the South-East involving some 31,000 posts, nearly 90 per cent. of which will be located in the assisted areas. It is our policy to continue to look for opportunities to disperse Government work from London and the South-East and to set up any new work in other regions whenever possible.

Mr. Hooley: I welcome the action taken to situate the Manpower Services Commission in Sheffield, but is the Minister aware that the number of nonindustrial civil servants in Yorkshire and Humberside is 23,000 compared with 33.000 in the Northern Region, 44,000 in the South-West and 47,000 in the North-West? Will he bear this in mind when considering future redeployment programmes?

Mr. Morris: I shall do that and take particular note of the statistics.

Clerical Officers (Pay)

Mr. Wrigglesworth: asked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will consider shortening the number of increments on the pay scale for clerical officers.

Mr. Charles R. Morris: The present incremental scale for clerical officers is agreed with the staff associations concerned, and does not fall to be reviewed until 1976.

Mr. Wrigglesworth: There is general support for the principle of incremental scales. Is my hon. Friend aware that there is hope that these will not be restricted by the current discussions between the Government and the TUC but that the increments in the clerical officer and clerical assistant grades are so long that it takes almost a decade to reach the top point of the scale and that they are therefore almost meaningless?

Mr. Morris: I understand and appreciate the concern my hon. Friend has expressed, particularly since I was once a civil servant in a grade which at that time had 18 points on the incremental pay scale. I appreciate the irritation and frustration felt by civil servants in such grades.

PARLIAMENT

Mr. Radice: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will move for the appointment of a Select Committee into the workings of Parliament.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): I am planning a major review of parliamentary procedure in the autumn. Whether this should be done by Select Committee or in some other way is still to be decided.

Mr. Radice: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his answer will be warmly welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House? Will he accept that Parliament's rôole as a check on the executive and also as a forum for national debate needs re-examination in the light of modern conditions? Will he also accept that we need to look at the servicing and working conditions of Members of Parliament, including late parliamentary hours?

Mr. Short: I agree with my hon. Friend on both points. The first point is the fundamental one. The relationship between the roles of the executive and of the legislature has rather changed in recent years. I agree that this is fundamental to parliamentary democracy. The second matter is the kind of practical problem with which a radical review of this kind should be concerned.

Mr. Graham Page: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that he gave an

assurance recently to find time for debating the valuable report of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton) on the preparation of legislation? As this deals with a substantial aspect of the working of Parliament, can the right hon. Gentleman say when that debate may take place?

Mr. Short: I pay tribute to the excellence of the report by the right hon. and learned Member for Huntingdonshire (Sir D. Renton). I hope that we can debate both this report and the report from the Select Committee on Procedure before the end of the present Session.

Mr. David Steel: Will the right hon. Gentleman, in the review of the working of Parliament, take into account the changing nature of the composition of the House of Commons and the fact that it is now a multi-party Chamber, whereas many of our procedures are still geared to the outdated two-party system?

Mr. Short: Certainly I should welcome the views of hon. Members over the next few weeks on the scope of the review.

Mr. English: May I take up a slight ambiguity in my right hon. Friend's remarks and ask whether he is aware that this House and the other place are masters of their own procedures, and that a Joint Committee would be better than any such body as a Royal Commission or anything of that sort?

Mr. Short: I rule out a Royal Commission, which would take much too long, but there are a number of other possibilities. One is a Joint Committee and another is whether we should bring in one or two people from outside to help us. I think that the public have a point of view here, too.

Mr. Peyton: Is the right hon. Gentle man aware that his remarks ruling cut a Royal Commission are wholly welcome to everyone on this side of the House? It is pleasant to be able to agree with the right hon. Gentleman for once. May I ask whether he is aware that while the Opposition would welcome a review of the working of Parliament we would want to be assured that not too much influence would be exerted by those who have


succeeded in gumming up the proceedings of the House of Commons with the present congested legislative programme

Mr. Short: I think that the gumming up, as the right hon. Gentleman rather inelegantly calls it, is due to a number of factors. That cited by him may be one, but there are others that I could mention. The right hon. Gentleman started his supplementary question in a harmonious way, and I shall not disturb the harmony.

POLITICAL PARTIES (SUBSIDIES)

Mr. Hurd: asked the Lord President of the Council when he expects to receive the report of Lord Houghton's committee on the proposal that Government subsidies should be made available to political parties for their work outside Parliament.

Mr. Edward Short: The terms of reference of Lord Houghton's committee are:
To consider whether, in the interests of parliamentary democracy, provision should be made from public funds to assist political parties in carrying out their functions outside Parliament: to examine the practice of other parliamentary democracies in this field, and to make recommendations as to the scope of political activities to which any such provision should relate and the method of its allocation.
The committee met for the first time on 19th June. It is too early to say how long it is likely to take.

Mr. Hurd: Will the right hon. Gentleman please look at this again in the present situation? At a time when so many voluntary organisations are fighting for their lives against inflation, would it not be a scandalous abuse of power if political parties were to give themselves special protection by voting themselves subsidies from the public purse?

Mr. Short: That is a point of view, but it is not the only one. I believe that political parties are an essential part of the machinery of democracy. Many parliamentary democracies have done this, including such countries as New Zealand, Sweden and so on, and all that this committee is doing is inquiring into this and making recommendations to us. It has no recommendation before it, and it is open to anybody to submit evidence. The committee has welcomed this. I

believe that the hon. Gentleman has submitted evidence to it, and any other hon. Members may do so.

Mr. Heffer: Will my right hon. Friend accept that this matter must be treated with the greatest of care because many hon. Members on this side of the House, and on the other side too, believe that unless we are very careful this could undermine the type of democratic system that we have? The idea of payments to political parties could lead to the sort of situation that exists in some of the European parties where there are lists of candidates, kept members who have little independence. Therefore, will my right hon. Friend note that many of us who passionately believe in the democratic process feel that in certain circumstances this could undermine the democratic process?

Mr. Short: That, too, is a point of view, and it is the kind of consideration that Lord Houghton's committee, which is a balanced one, will take into account.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS

Travel Facilities (Members)

Mr. Mike Thomas: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will arrange for similar travel facilities as are available to staff of the House of Commons after late sittings to be available to those Members who wish to use them.

Mr. Edward Short: I recognise that late sittings impose a heavy burden on many Members. The arrangements that operate for members of staff would probably not be ideal for Members, but if there is strong feeling on this I will consider it.

Mr. Thomas: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Is he aware that those who have constituencies a considerable distance from the House are forced in present circumstances, when there is a late sitting, either to possess two cars, which is beyond the means of most of us, or to travel home by taxi, for which at most we can claim 7·7p per mile? Is he aware that that is not adequate and we should be glad if he would do something about it?

Mr. Short: May I, for the benefit of hon. Members, make the position quite


clear, because my hon. Friend did not get it quite right? Perhaps I may put on record exactly what is the present position.
Hon. Members travelling home by their own cars may receive the car allowance. Hon. Members going home by taxi can claim the car allowance and charge any difference between the taxi fare and the car allowance against tax liabilities. Hon. Members who travel by rail can use warrants. Bus fares paid to get home can be reimbursed. Hon. Members can use their travel allowance to enable them to travel either to and from their constituencies or in London. A scheme was introduced on 17th March 1947 but it was so unsuccessful that it was suspended on 23rd April 1947.

Mr. Powell: Will the right hon. Gentleman be careful to avoid any further measures which tend to equate hon. Members of this House with paid servants of the Crown?

Mr. Short: Without commenting on that, what I said was that if there was a general demand for me to look at it I should be prepared to do so. I have looked carefully at the scheme introduced in 1947. It was very difficult to organise, and in the end it had to be abandoned.

DEVOLUTION (LEGISLATION)

Mr. Canavan: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will now make a statement on the timetable for the proposed legislation on devolution.

The Minister of State, Privy Council Office (Mr. Gerry Fowler): My right hon. Friend the Lord President has several times told the House that there will be a White Paper in the autumn and that he hoped that the Bill would be ready by the end of the year, and there is no change in that position.

Mr. Canavan: Bearing in mind that Assemblies for Scotland and Wales were promised in the Labour Party manifesto and that reference was made in the Queen's Speech to urgent preparations for such plans, will my hon. Friend do all he can to expedite the implementation of that decision and not listen to those Cabinet Ministers who are quoted as thinking that the devolution plans can be scrapped

or shelved because of the recent EEC referendum result?

Mr. Fowler: Everything has been and will be done to expedite the preparation of plans. If my hon. Friend accepts that this is a major constitutional change, I hope he will agree that we would be very ill-advised to rush into it with undue preparation.

Mr. Whitelaw: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many people would entirely agree with his view that this is a major constitutional development which will have most profound repercussions for the whole of the United Kingdom and its future unity? Is he aware that any suggestion that this House should rush into it without the most careful consideration would be extremely unwise? Will he give an assurance that when the White Paper is published in the autumn there will be the opportunity for a debate and that the White Paper will do its best to give a realistic estimate of the likely cost of any developments outlined in it?

Mr. Fowler: I hope that the cost of our devolution proposals will be minimal. They may well lead to a more sensible and coherent use of resources in Scotland and Wales. We are publishing the White Paper in the hope that there will be the fullest and freest discussion of its proposals in the House and outside it.

Mr. Crawford: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his last statement and his reply to his hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) represent a disgraceful piece of backsliding on this issue?

Mr. Fowler: There is no backsliding. I repeated today the pledge that has been made in the past. It would appear that the hon. Gentleman is waiting to hear bad news which has has come to expect merely because his party sees an advantage in hearing bad news. There is no backsliding and I repeat the pledge I gave earlier.

Mr. Grimond: As the Minister has said that there must be ample time for discussion after the publication of the White Paper in the autumn, will he give a guarantee that the Bill which follows will be introduced sufficiently early in the Session to allow proper discussion in Parliament rather than have what has


happened this Session when important Bills have not appeared until April or May?

Mr. Fowler: I will give an assurance that there will be adequate time for a full discussion of what will be a most important piece of legislation.

Mr. Gwynfor Evans: In view of the rumours that the Government are backpedalling on this question of devolution, may I ask the Minister to give a categoric assurance that the Bill will be published before the end of the year?

Mr. Fowler: No, Sir. I have repeatedly said, as has my right hon. Friend, that we shall endeavour to have a Bill ready by the end of the year. As for rumours, we are not a Government who believe in Government by rumour. We may be reaching a point when Conservative Members and Members of the other parties start rumours which they think are to their political advantage and then quote them against the Government.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Is it true that the Government are considering giving separate powers of taxation to a Scottish Assembly? If this is the case, will the Government bear in mind the danger of Scotland becoming the most over-governed and over-taxed country in the world?

Mr. Fowler: The hon. Member will get an answer to his question when the White Paper is published.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Adley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I raise briefly a point of order about today's Question Time?
A few weeks ago I raised with you the inadequacy of the length of Question Time for Questions dealing with the environment. I have kept an eye on Mondays since. Two weeks ago today there was only one Question tabled on the first day available for tabling Welsh Questions. A week ago there were still only three Questions on the Order Paper.
The exchanges in the past 20 minutes seem to indicate that subjects such as Questions to the Lord President and to the Minister for the Civil Service are of general interest to a large number of right

hon. and hon. Members. Would it be possible for this to be looked at so that perhaps at least Questions to the Lord President could have rather more than 10 minutes once every six weeks?

Mr. Wigley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is not aware that Welsh Questions occur only once every six weeks. Since the "Welsh Day" debate which should have taken place at some time in the past 15 months has still not appeared do we not need more time rather than less?

Mr. Speaker: There are about three different points in this. There is the question of the preservation of the rights of minority communities or regions or principalities. There is also the question of the order of Questions, which is not really for me but for the usual channels. The real answer, which would make things so much better, is for hon. Members to ask shorter questions. The supplementary question of the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley) was not all that short. If, when Ministers agree with something, they would sometimes just say "Yes, Sir" it would be a help.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): Mr. Speaker, with permission, I will make a short statement.
Following the settlement of the Sharman Group of newspapers' dispute, the business of the Adjournment for Tuesday will be as originally announced; namely, a debate on the plight of voluntary organisations until about seven o'clock followed by a debate on arms sales.

STANDING COMMITTEES (MEMBERSHIP)

Mr. Gordon Wilson: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise a serious matter for Parliament in its concern with the defence of minorities within this Parliament. I refer to the question of the membership of the Committee to examine the Scottish Development Agency Bill which has only one Scottish


National Party Member on it, seven Conservative Members and nine Government Members, whereas in terms of voting in Scotland we represent 30 per cent. of the vote and have 11 Members of Parliament compared with 16 Conservative Scottish Members. Will you consider helping minority parties to secure justice in this House by obtaining full and ample representation on such Committees in accordance with their numbers and support in the country as a whole?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Chief Whip and I have heard what the hon. Gentleman has said. We will certainly be prepared to look at this.

Mr. David Steel: If that is to be looked at, may I ask whether the Lord President is also aware that there is no Liberal Member on that Committee?

Mr. Speaker: This is not a matter over which I have any power at all. [Interruption.] Perhaps the discussions about it could take place outside this Chamber.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at this day's Sitting, the proceedings on the Motion relating to the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill (Allocation of Time) may be proceeded with, though opposed, after Ten o'clock.—[Mr. John Ellis.]

UNITED KINGDOM BILL OF RIGHTS

3.37 p.m.

Mr. James Kilfedder: I beg to move,
That this House urges HM Government to recommend the setting up of a Royal Commission to investigate and report upon the subject of a Bill of Rights extending to the whole of the United Kingdom.
I do not believe that this nation can refrain any longer from taking the historic and significant step of placing the liberties of its citizens in the safe keeping of a Bill of Rights. I am not advocating a change for the sake of change. Far from it. The common law is supposed to protect the rights of the individual. But those rights are being steadily eroded. Often the ordinary individual does not know that those rights have diminished over the years.
The facts of life in this country today are that the Government have infiltrated, sometimes with dire consequences, into every home of the land and affected the lives of every citizen for good or ill. A great mass of legislation emanates from Parliament every year. The rush of legislation is such that procedural devices such as guillotine motions have been used to force through controversial legislation without proper examination, discussion and amendment. Principal legislation is now subject to the same kind of criticism which we have always levelled against delegated legislation. The great bulk of administrative decisions derive from legislation that has never even been debated in this House.
We have seen an extension of the power and influence of an unbridled bureaucracy which could never have been conceived 20 or 30 years ago—even in wartime conditions. At every turn our lives are circumscribed by the edicts of administrators. I am not referring only to the Civil Service, although we live nowadays in what is probably the most highly centralised State in the world. Permanent officials in local government and on statutory bodies of all kinds wield an immense power over our daily lives. This is not unique to the public sector. It applies to the private sector as well.
The experience of large national and multinational industrial concerns shows


that the growth of the arrogant bureaucratic mentality is by no means confined to Government agencies. Central Government domination over all aspects of the decision-making process in the public and private sectors is firmly established, to the detriment of the ordinary citizen.
Under local government reorganisation, the size of local government areas was increased and, in the search for greater efficiency, local councils have been left with less effective autonomy than they had before. The result is that permanent staff in local government and statutory boards paralleled the Whitehall bureaucracy at countless mini-Whitehalls throughout Great Britain. Most of these changes have been brought about by economic and social forces and no doubt were regarded as inevitable, indeed necessary. Although we have, thank goodness, greater security of employment and greater assurance of a reasonable standard of living, they have been achieved at considerable cost in freedom.
The response of Parliament to these great changes in the fabric of our society has been to protect the people from exploitation and hardship. Every liberty must be balanced. We should not like to see restored the liberty of people to suffer, as they suffered decades ago, from malnutrition and hardship. Provision has been made, for instance, for equal pay, for equality between the sexes and for industrial legislation on hours and safety at work. In Northern Ireland people have the right of direct access to a Commissioner for Complaints when they feel aggrieved by the action of a local authority or other public body, though there are some limitations, unfortunately, even to this protection.
Most of the industrial and social legislation in the United Kingdom provides for an appeal procedure, generally of a fairly informal kind. We are all familiar with the tribunals on social security benefits, with arbitration procedure under the Industrial Courts Act 1919, with the Lands Tribunal, planning decisions procedure, and so on. All those are valuable, they are meant to dispose of the question of a persons' rights in specific circumstances, and, except in the event of a mistake in law the person generally has no right of appeal to the courts. This denial of a right of access to the

courts is shameful. As a Member of Parliament, I know of blatant examples in which justice has not been done on the facts.
We have proceeded by ad hoc measures and the result is a patchwork of safeguards which is uneven in practice. An effective legal remedy for the protection of fundamental rights is missing. We have not grasped the nettle of providing by law entrenched protection of fundamental rights. Neither the Universal Declaration of Human Rights nor the European Convention on Human Rights has resulted in any guarantee of fundamental rights in this country. The United Kingdom ratified the European Convention 24 years ago, and although the other signatories to it have incorporated it in their domestic law, we have not done so. It has been argued that, because of Article I of the Convention, it is not necessary to do so. Article I reads:
The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section 1 of the Convention.
It is argued that British people should be able to invoke the provisions of Section 1, and I understand that many of them have done so. More complaints have been laid before the Strasbourg court by British citizens than have been laid by citizens of any other country. That is significant. Proceedings before the Strasbourg court are notoriously slow. The first British case determined by it was determined early this year, but the complaint had been lodged as long ago as 1970. No one would deny that a speedy remedy is essential when dealing with the question of fundamental human rights. A slow procedure in these circumstances is probably a denial of a fundamental human right.
The European Court is outside the jurisdiction of this country and is external to the British courts, yet it has power to comment on legislation passed by the British Parliament and on the actions of British Government Departments. The fact that the writ of the European Court runs in the United Kingdom is undeniable, for as recently as 6th March the Home Secretary announced in the House that he would give effect to the ruling of the court in the Golder case. I do not know whether any action has been taken.
It is not good enough that British citizens must go to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The protection of their freedom should be the responsibility of the British courts, but, as Lord Justice Scarman has said, that is not possible until our domestic law incorporates the rights specified in the European Convention. I think that he went on to say that in the absence of legislation to give effect to the convention, the British courts are helpless to uphold the people's fundamental rights.
I am convinced of the need in this country for a Bill of Rights. Discussion of this question has been hampered by the technical point about how to entrench fundamental law in an unwritten constitution. I hold no brief for the solutions which have been suggested by various people over the years, but my personal inclination is to look at the Canadian Bill of Rights. However, that is better left for close examination by a Royal Commission, for which I have asked in the motion. The aim should be to protect the Bill of Rights from subsequent repeal. Therefore, some form of entrenchment would have to be devised.
I do not wish to labour the novelty of the British situation in which Parliament can legally abrogate the rights of citizens, as happened, perhaps accidentally, in 1971 when a large number of Commonwealth citizens living in this country were declared to be illegal immigrants, though at the time of their arrival their entry was legal. Under a Bill of Rights such as that which I envisage such retrospective legislation would be contrary to a fundamental right. At present, retrospective legislation is permissible. In the last Finance Act the Government introduced the hardship of retrospective legislation in respect of television hire-purchase agreements. They increased the financial burden into which a person had entered by contract after considering how much he could afford to pay over the years. We should all disapprove of that.
To return to the question of the Immigration Act, it is worth reading the views of Lord Salmon in his dissenting judgment in the case of Azem v. the Home Secretary in the House of Lords in 1973. He said:
Whether or not an Act should be retrospective in its effect is a matter for the decision

of Parliament alone. It depends essentially on legislative policy. … I feel bound, however, to express concern that the draftsmen of this Act should have chosen to achieve its retrospective effect through a labyrinth of verbiage which may well have been as perplexing to many of those who had to consider it in Parliament as it undoubtedly was to those whom it may have deprived of their constitutional rights.
In his judgment he continued by saying:
I do not consider that the fact that the
—Immigration Act of 1971—
is not criminal in character affords any reason for giving Section 33(2) an extended meaning. If that legislation had created criminal offences, it would, at any rate, have given the appellants the protection that they could not have been deported except on the recommendations of a court of law. As far as they are concerned, if Section 33(2) is given an extended meaning
—which in fact is what the majority of the court decided—
the Act did something far worse than creating a criminal offence. It imposed on them the liability to be imprisoned and deported by the executive in place of the right which they had previously enjoyed to live here and to go free.
Under the common law there is the long cherished right of personal liberty. Therefore two conditions should exist—either freedom from arrest, or arrest. Now there seems to be an intermediate stage of assisting the police with their inquiries, which is a form of detention.
The May edition of the Criminal Law Review contains an article on arrest, detention and compulsion which is worthy of careful examination. The article, by Mr. David Lannan, opens with these sentences:
Something rather disturbing has recently been happening to the law relating to personal freedom and arrest. There seems to be creeping into our law an idea that the policemen's duty to bring offenders to justice arms him with the powers over and above those conferred on him by the law of arrest.
He goes on to say:
The clarity of this principle"—
that there is no power to detain merely for questions or pending inquiries—
has become clouded by recent decisions.
He mentions first the case of Donnelly and Jackman of 1970, where Donnelly was walking along a pavement. A police officer asked him whether he could have a word with him. Donnelly ignored the request and made it clear that he did not wish to speak with the officer. The officer touched Donnelly on the shoulder, with


the intention of stopping him. Donnelly struck the policeman with some force and was arrested for assaulting a policeman in the course of his duty. Subsequently the divisional court held that Donnelly was guilty of the offence. I shall not deal with the other cases mentioned by the author of the article. However, I should like to refer to his final remarks. He said:
In so far as the cases suggest that there is a power to use compulsion short of detention there is no satisfactory way of distinguishing them from the detention cases and they must be regarded as wrong …. On any view these cases are unsatisfactory and need reconsideration. The laws of arrest mark the legal balance between civil liberty and compulsory powers for the institution of a criminal process.
I can give only a few examples in the short time available to me. I should like to refer to credit. In modern society many people depend on their creditworthiness for mortgages, business deals and hire purchase. It is totally wrong that a person should be found not to be creditworthy and given no opportunity to show whether the assessment was mistaken or inaccurate. Behind the scenes the applicant for credit may be weighed in the balance by anonymous men and found wanting. He has no redress against the commercial decision.
Most of us could cite cases where a person has been blackballed and prevented from obtaining credit. For example, I heard of a case recently where a person had belatedly paid a debt in his capacity as guarantor, owing to a delay in tracing him as he had changed his address. He was listed as a risk on a confidential report which went out to all the hire-purchase companies, banks and businesses. Over the years they wrongly refused him credit facilities until he discovered the reason why he met this brick wall. That man had paid the debt. He was not a risk. That is the kind of case we face today.
Prejudice to the citizen does not end there. Information is collected officially and stored in computer data banks. What right of redress has the citizen whose confidential details have been revealed to other persons, as we know happens from time to time?
I feel even greater alarm at the activities of the private police forces such as Securicor. At airports the Securicor per-

sonnel become more arrogant the longer they have control over the security checks of passengers. Recently at London Airport one lady described the persons concerned as behaving like the Gestapo. That was an exaggeration. However, there is no doubt that the conduct of some of them is inexcusable.
Her anger was aroused by the primitive conditions which exist at London Airport for the handling of passengers waiting to travel by TriStar to Northern Ireland. I do not know whether the TriStar is used on any other route inside the United Kingdom, but it is a disgrace that people should be crowded together, especially women, children and babies, in conditions which anyone else would refuse to accept. I am a quiet person. I made a protest to the person who said that he was in charge of Securicor at London Airport at that time. The plane was delayed, as happens frequently. I said that I wanted to go out to buy a snack. He said to me "You go out, and I shall take everybody out to the security check". As he said that he relished the pleasure of putting these people through that procedure, and daring me to go out. I do not know why we should suffer these people to acquire these powers.

Mr. Frank Tomney: The hon. Gentleman exaggerates beyond the bounds of credibility. We all know the conditions at modern airports in which people have to queue for planes. They are herded in special pens. However, that is not a permanent condition, and we should not pretend that it is. We know why security people were engaged. The reason is the Northern Ireland situation. Those people have to be extra careful, because of hijacking. If there is any departure from the accepted line of procedure there might be trouble. Therefore this criticism is a little unfair.

Mr. Kilfedder: The hon. Gentleman has contradicted himself. He said that the security restrictions were because of the Northern Ireland situation and then he talked about hijacking. There has been no hijacking yet. The hon. Gentleman's intervention proves that he has never suffered these conditions.

Mr. Tomney: The hon. Gentleman misses the point.

Mr. Kilfedder: I shall not give way again to the hon. Gentleman. The people of Northern Ireland will not suffier these conditions much longer. I am speaking about a Bill of Rights relating not only to Northern Ireland but to the whole of the United Kingdom.
Only last week at Aldergrove Airport a member of a private police force—I do not know whether of Securicor—purported to arrest a passenger whose only fault lay in wishing to say something to his aunt after he had been searched. The officer placed his hands on the passenger's arm or shoulder and was about to detain him. From where do Securicor men and members of other private police forces acquire these powers? I accept that we must have security precautions, but they must not be used as an excuse for intolerable conditions.

Mr. Tomney: rose—

Mr. Kilfedder: I am not giving way. I find totally unsatisfactory the present infringement of the right to privacy. I know of patients and out-patients in our teaching hospitals who, without having their permission sought, are exposed to the view not only of the doctor but of a number of medical students who crowd around the bed. That is not right. It is highly irresponsible for doctors or those in charge of hospitals not to protect patients who are often too ill to make their own protest. Every patient should be informed that he has a right to refuse to be medically examined in front of others.
My final example is of local authorities who open up rubbish dumps close to residential areas. Only yesterday I heard of a rubbish dump being opened within 400 yards of a newly-built bungalow. The elderly person who lives in that bungalow is suffering the inconvenience, smell and health hazard of that rubbish dump. Dumps have been opened in other places as well, close to people's houses. That, again, is an infringement of a fundamental right.

Mr. A. J. Beith: I am sympathetic to much of what the hon. Gentleman says, but how would he seek to define the rights enshrined in a Bill of Rights in such a way as to prevent the distress caused to the person to whom he refers by the siting of a local authority rubbish dump? What general right does

the hon. Gentleman envisage could be embraced in legislation to apply to that?

Mr. Kilfedder: I must refer the hon. Gentleman to the speech made by his right hon. Friend—

Mr. Beith: By my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Montgomery (Mr. Hooson).

Mr. Kilfedder: He faced this great difficulty. It has been said that wherever there is a wrong there is a remedy, but we know from experience that there is not always a remedy. It is not for me now to go into how these matters can be dealt with in detail. It is properly within the province of a Royal Commission, and I hope that the Government will establish a Royal Commission.
We do not have sufficient legal aid to protect people who suffer a wrong and who seek in a civil action to get justice. The same applies in criminal cases, where magistrates often do not inform the defendant of his right to apply for legal aid, so that cases are often dealt with without the accused person being represented by a solicitor or counsel.
There is much talk of the devolution of central government authority to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Perhaps one day this Parliament will have to shed some of its work load to other English regionally elected institutions. However that may be, demarcation disputes are bound to arise from time to time between the regional assemblies and Parliament, or between the regional administrations and Whitehall, so that the courts and judges will be involved in determining the limits of authority. Inevitably, our judicature will have to determine disputes which some would regard as political matters. Before that situation arises, I urge the House to consider the possibility that Britain could achieve, without loss of her great traditions and without any diminution of the sovereignty of Parliament, better legal protection for fundamental human rights.
In view of what I said about the Tri-Star, I should perhaps say that I should not have been here for the beginning of the debate but for the kind offices of the staff of British Airways who made sure that, having arrived at London Heathrow at 3 o'clock, I reached the House at 3.30 p.m.

4.7 p.m.

Mr. Edward du Cann: I am delighted to learn that the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder)—my hon. Friend, if I may say so—was so assisted by British Airways. It would have been a tragedy if he had been prevented from being here to move his motion, on which we all congratulate him —not merely on his good fortune but also on his choice of subject.
As my hon. Friend illustrated, it is a matter of fact that individual freedom in this country is being steadily eroded, as surely indeed as water wears away a stone. Of course, we do not live in chains. It is true that we can speak and write as we please provided that we are not blasphemous, obscene or seditious, although many of us think that the bounds of what is allowable are being stretched a little too far in all these regards today. True, there is no imprisonment except for a clear breach of the law. True, there are no secret police. True, we enjoy a degree of personal freedom which is rarely found outside the British Commonwealth or the United States. Yet there is, as the hon. Gentleman indicated, a widespread unease and a growing concern about the impact of modern life upon the individual.
The needs of society and, therefore, the operations of public authorities have bceome infinitely more complex than they were 20 or 50 years ago. Fifty years ago there was almost no nationalisation—thank heavens, one might say—and little State aid to firms and persons, whereas today there is far too much. There was little apparatus of control, direct or indirect, of prices, wages and standards. Today, one might think that the consumer was almost a god. There was little control of the movement of capital, planning and the like. Indeed, as my hon. Friend pointed out so plainly, there were fewer laws, fewer regulations and fewer obligations.
In the meantime, as we all know, the two great bulwarks of protection for the rights of the citizen, parliamentary control over the executive—that is to say, the legislative and administrative acts of government—and access to the courts, have equally been subject to constant erosion, and in some respects they do not exist at all.
I have stated as a matter of fact in this House on more than one occasion—and I have no doubt that my right hon. and hon. Friends agree—that public expenditure, for example, is wholly outside the control of this House—if it is not out of control altogether.
It is for those reasons, because I share the general anxiety and concern of which I have spoken, that for many years I have supported the proposal to introduce a new Bill of Rights in this country, a "Little Man's Magna Carta" as it has sometimes been called. I am more than ever convinced that it is essential. As my hon Friend has indicated, there has been more than one attempt to introduce such a measure here and in another place, the latest occasion being when my noble friend Lord Arran endeavoured to introduce such a Bill in October 1970.
There has been distinguished support for such a reform of the constitution. Lord Gardiner and my noble Friend Lord Hailsham, for instance, have spoken and written impressively on this subject, not least in Lord Hailsham's articles in The Times, which were followed by interesting correspondence. But the most impressive of the recent testimony has come from Lord Justice Scarman in his remarkable Hamlyn lectures, when he said in effect, strikingly, that only if there were a new constitutional settlement embodied in a Bill of Rights could the individual be guaranteed a measure of protection from legislation enacted by Parliament in breach of human rights.
Historical pride in parliamentary sovereignty, of which we boast and of which many of us learned years ago, following the authorship of such distinguished past constitutionists as Professor Dicey, is perhaps now mistaken in the modern context, or, at any rate, so I have begun to suspect and feel.
No protection such as that which Sir Leslie Scarman advocated can be automatically derived from the parliamentary process itself. I wish it could. For example, the European Convention on Human Rights, which was ratified by the United Kingdom in 1951, has in truth almost no effect in this country. Parliament can pass, and has passed, legislation in contravention of that convention. I cannot say that my hon. Friend's example of the legislation on


immigration in 1971 is a sound case. The retrospective annulment of a legal settlement achieved by the Burmah Oil Company is probably a more valid example. Nor is it only a matter of Parliament ignoring that convention. The existing law does not have to conform to it.
It is surely a matter for shame that the institutions of the convention in Strasbourg have received more complaints from individuals in this country then from individuals in any other country to which the convention applies. If that were broadly known in the United Kingdom, it would be regarded as shocking.
Thus the old doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty is open to criticism both for what Parliament itself does, is inclined to do, or is able to do, and for what Parliament does not do. It is a fact that the unfettered legislative authority possessed by Parliament in these days—"elected dictatorship" I have heard it called—has become a source of anxiety to many thinking people.
As every schoolboy knows, we do not have a written constitution. In these circumstances, it must be right to examine whether we need an alternative entrenchment of individual rights in the modern context of which I have been speaking. Were we to have a Bills of Rights, it would certainly provide a first line of defence for the protection of human freedom.
In 1689, again as every schoolboy will, I hope, remember, especially those in the West Country, the tyrant was the Crown. Now perhaps it is Parliament itself, innocently, I agree, but inevitably. Every new law, every new Order in Council, whittles away freedom a little.
How many laws as a matter of fact do we now deal with in these days? I will weary the House with some statistics. The average number of Acts of Parliament over the past 10 years has been 52 a year. We must take a long period to establish an average because of the incidence of General Elections, as all hon. Members know. This year, in my opinion wrongly and unnecessarily, we shall deal with 70. The number of pages of public general Acts has averaged 1,400 a year over the 30 years from 1943. In 1973 the number was 2,200, an increase of more than 50 per cent.
Every day it becomes more difficult for the citizen to know what he may or

may not do. Ignorantia juris non excusat was the maxim that we were all taught in years gone by. I am not sure that that maxim is any longer a fair statement. I know that my local chief constable in Somerset, a most excellent, competent and devoted public servant, incessantly complains to me as his local Member of Parliament how difficult it is for his constables to be taught precisely what the law is.
Aggregated, the number of subjects we shall discuss on the Floor of the House this week comes to 19. That is an obvious sign of pressure in five days. If we aggregate the work that we are doing in the course of a year, or the course of a week, it will be seen that it is very formidable, and that is the obvious picture that is disclosed.
But if to that we add subordinate legislation—why it is called "subordinate" I do not know, because much of it is primary—we have 2,000 instruments a year, 1,000 of them of general application. But in 1974 there were 2,200 instruments, about half of them of general application. That means that there were 6,000 new pages of legislation additional to the 2,200 pages of Acts of Parliament of which I have already spoken.
Then there is the European legislation, again surely primary. If you go to the Vote Office, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I am sure you do, and ask for the latest report of the Select Committee that the House has established to look into European legislation, you will find that that for 17th June, the latest to be published, was the 24th such report made to Parliament about matters that that Committee says should have the careful consideration of the House most of which have not.
Yet, as my hon. Friend said, in this Chamber we deal with no more than a fraction of the total of our work. That is not surprising, because there is more pressure on Members of Parliament and a shortage of time.
In addition to the work on the Floor of the House, there is the Committee work to do. I wonder how many right hon. and hon. Members are aware that we have already had 265 sittings of Standing Committees this Session to 1st July. I do not know whether that is a record, but I know that the number of


Standing Committees currently sitting is a record. To that number must be added the Standing Committees on regional affairs, the two on statutory instruments, the Northern Ireland Grand Committee and so on. The total is assuredly a record.
There is also a record number of Select Committees, no fewer than 14 sitting at present, and they have 19 sub-committees. The latest to divide itself amoeba-like is the Select Committee on the wealth tax, and the reason for its division hon. Members may think particularly sinister.
Then there are the party committees. The Conservative Party will have some 20 committee meetings this week. According to the whip, there are six meetings of all-party groups this week, and there is the CPA and the British Group of the IPU.
It is a formidable catalogue of activity. It is important to record it. The public outside the House has little comprehension of what is involved in its membership. Ordinarily that might not matter, but the public relies on two particular sentries of its interest and for the defence of its rights. It relies on the Press and perhaps on broadcasting and television, the "media" as they are called. They no longer have the full facility for doing the work that is necessary. Indeed, one could fill a whole newspaper or a whole broadcasting day on any day with a week's casebook of any individual Member of Parliament.
It is true that occasionally scandalous injustices are brought to light. That is sometimes done by devoted and competent detection. Of course, credit is due for what is accomplished. However, my point is that the net is too wide-meshed to catch but a fraction of what I regard as, and what my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) might describe as, some highly offensive stinking fish.
The other sentry is the back bencher, the supposed hero of the private cause. I suggest that physically he can no longer pace out the perimeter that he is supposed to guard. That is my point in quoting the statistics which I produced. Perhaps I have said too little about an MP's work. That is especially so when we consider the additional burdens, such as an MP's mail. The burden is even heavier than I indicated.
In fact, we are no longer the watchdogs that once we were and that the public trust us to be. Indeed, we cannot perform that rôle. Legislation is now produced in such quantities and the work load of Members of Parliament is so heavy that detailed inspection is a physically impossibility. I wish it were not so, but I say plainly that it is. For that reason I am sure that Members of Parliament need the weapon of a Bill of Rights to enable them to fulfil the responsibility that the public expect us to discharge. If we were to have such a Bill we should have a fine net available for our use.
A Bill of Rights would not override parliamentary sovereignty because Parliament could amend or repeal it. In parenthesis, I would say that Parliamentary sovereignty is not only a legal fact but a political matter. I believe that it would be politically very difficult, if not impossible, for Parliament drastically to cancel or amend such an Act if the Bill became an Act. The whole nation would be alert to what was proposed. Surely that is the chief safeguard that we require. I suggest that we sleep today while freedom is reduced insidiously and inexorably, and that our crime in this House is carelessness.
I should like to see a modern Bill of Rights to supplement Magna Carta, the Petition of Rights and the 1689 Bill of Rights, to which I have already referred, those old cornerstones of the constitution. Just as the 1689 Bill formed the basis of a new contract between the Monarch and Parliament, since when the power of the Crown has waned in proportion to the increase in the powers of the executive, so a new Bill of Rights would form the basis of a new contract between Parliament and the individual.
Such a Bill would seek to enhance the principle of parliamentary sovereignty in that it could stipulate that all future legislation should be submitted to an authority—for example, the Solicitor-General, the Ombudsman or a judicial committee, whatever one might think appropriate—to ensure its consistency with the Bill of Rights. Any inconsistency would then be reported to Parliament. and we would then accept or reject the recommendations of the designated authority. In either case attention would be drawn to the matter.
Whether or not such a Bill of Rights is the right approach, above all it seems that we need fresh clarity of thought on the subject of authority, its rights, its obligations and its limits. We also need such thought on individual freedom, its meanings and its true extent. It must be a matter of the greatest concern to Parliament that we re-establish a clear and generally acceptable body of doctrine on the fundamental issue of the relationship between the individual and the State. We need a new contract between Parliament and the individual, howsoever it is written.
The question is how we are to proceed. It seems essential that there is the agreement of all the parties in the House. If we had a Bill that was too weak it would merely restate the obvious. If we had a Bill that was overly strong it would inevitably be unacceptable to some. Let us be plain: no party has a monopoly of caring for the individual, whatever some of us—and especially some Labour hon. Members—may pretend. Nor does any party have a monopoly of the defence of freedom. This is the business of us all. I hope that out of this discussion —again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Down, North for initiating this debate—will come agreement that the matter should be inquired into fully by a Select Committee, or howsoever else, and that consideration should be given to whether existing safeguards are adequate for the protection of human rights in the United Kingdom. Recommendations should then be made in that regard.
Some may say that it will be just another Select Committee when we already have too many. I say that there is no subject which should be dearer or more significant to this House. There is no matter which is more appropriate for immediate inquiry. In this House we concern ourselves so much and so often with human affairs and life, so let us reflect, as the old questioner asked, "Who lives if freedom dies?".

4.27 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I concur with the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) in that my hon. Friend the Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) has performed an

important service in bringing this matter before the House.
There are from time to time in politics "South Sea Bubbles". In such instances projects of an undefined character, projects of which the details are to be revealed later as the South Sea promoters said, become the subject of unthinking and infectious enthusiasm, until the demand for them becomes almost irresistible before the content has been considered.
I think that there is some little danger of a Bill of Rights project becoming a kind of political South Sea Bubble. There is a sure way in which such bubbles can be pricked, and that is by debate in the House. Whatever defects we may have in this Chamber, a football is never quite the same as it was at the beginning when it has been kicked around here for three or four hours.
Despite an enjoyable excursus, in which my hon. Friend enjoyed my company, upon events at Aldergrove and Heathrow, my hon. Friend left no doubt about the broad definition of a Bill of Rights which he had in mind. I quote two expressions which he used which make that clear. My hon. Friend referred to a Bill of Rights as being the safe-keeping of the rights of the citizen. He regarded a Bill of Rights as in itself providing a safe-keeping for those rights. He went on to describe it later as an entrenched protection of those rights.
It is my proposition that a Bill of Rights in that sense—and I believe it is the significant sense—is incompatible with our constitution. If the word "constitution" be too vague and cloudy, I say that a Bill of Rights is incompatible with the responsibility of Government through this House to the electorate, the thing we call parliamentary democracy.
I shall not dwell upon the problem of entrenchment. My hon. Friend made it clear that he was aware of that problem Of course, if any law made by the House is to be entrenched we shall have to have two grades of law. That is something entirely unknown to us hitherto. We shall have to have a new grade of law which either Parliament cannot amend or, as it is inconceivable that we should enact a Bill of Rights incapable of being amended, it would have to be law which could be amended only upon different


conditions from those under which we amend all other existing law.
What conditions are those to be? Are we to require a two-thirds majority or a three-quarters majority in this House? are we to have a referendum, which I think would be popular on this side of the House, before such a Bill is to be introduced? The whole problem of entrenchment reveals the difference between the notion of a Bill of Rights in respect of the safe keeping of the rights of the citizen and parliamentary democracy and parliamentary government as we know it. However, I do not want to dwell on that problem of entrenchment, although it must not be overlooked.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Canadian Bill of Rights, which has been in existence for some years, does not have an entrenched provision and that that also applies to the Australian Bill of Rights? These are measures which are regarded as canons of interpretation by which other legislation, if it conflicts with these statutes, may be interpreted in a different way to ensure that a clash does not arise.

Mr. Powell: If we are thinking about a Bill of Rights in a different sense, if it is to be an improvement on the Interpretation Act 1889 or something of that kind, that is a different subject. It would not be capable of being described as something to which could be entrusted the safekeeping of the rights of the citizen and it could not be regarded as entrenched. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) for bringing out one of the difficulties of this subject, namely, the fact that we must start by defining the legislation we have in mind before we can criticise it.
I wish to revert to a Bill of Rights in the sense in which my hon. Friend the Member for Down, North sufficiently defined it and illustrate, by recent experience in this House, the intolerable breach of our parliamentary responsibility and democracy which would come about. I wish to refer to two pieces of legislation within recent memory—first to the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974, which was passed at the end of last year, and secondly to the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act which was recently renewed by this House and which this

House will re-enact in the next few months. Both measures passed through this House in a remarkably short time with almost universal, if regretful, approbation and, I think I am right in saying, without a division of principle. Yet both those Acts of Parliament aimed at abrogating within the limits laid down human rights which could hardly be regarded as less than fundamental.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act took away the right of a citizen—a citizen not charged with an offence, let alone convicted of an offence—to move freely from one part of this realm to another. It is hardly possible to imagine a more fundamental right of a citizen than that—. namely, the right to move at his own will and discretion within the law from one part of the country to another. But we legislated in this House to abrogate that right. I suppose to an Englishman —1 hope that you will permit that word, Mr. Deputy Speaker, since you are a fellow Welshman—one of the first rights he thinks of as being fundamental is the right to trial by jury. But we took away the right, and we confirmed the taking away of the right, to trial by jury in a part of this realm by enacting the emergency provisions legislation for Northern Ireland.
I want to pose the case that there was in existence, say nine months ago just before that legislation, an entrenched Bill of Rights which, among other things, secured to the citizen the right of freedom of movement from one part of the country to the other and the right to be tried by jury by one's fellow countrymen. What would have happened? The legislation when passed by Parliament would have been referred to the courts as potentially inconsistent with the entrenched constitutional Bill of Rights. It is hardly possible to imagine that the courts would have failed to find a conflict and to condemn or invalidate the new legislation because it conflicted with the entrenched rights of the citizen.

Mr. Leon Brittan: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is impossible to say, in advance of a Bill of Rights, that specific provisions in it would conflict with such a Bill? Does he agree that it is possible within a Bill of Rights to have exceptions and limitations to deal with emergency situations? Does he not further agree


that in the United States, which has a Bill of Rights and the most complex machinery to enforce it in the Supreme Court, legislation was ratified by the Supreme Court in the Second World War which imposed on Japanese Americans, for good reasons or bad, in an emergency situation, limitations which would make the present legislation passed by this House in respect of Northern Ireland pale into insignificance?

Mr. Powell: I follow the hon. Gentleman's argument and I have reflected on that matter on other occasions. However, the point which he raises will be picked up by the examination of the proposition which I was about to undertake, and I shall return to the matter later.
Let us suppose—and the hypothesis cannot be excluded—that a court found an inconsistency between the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974 and the constitutional Bill of Rights. In that case the legislation would be invalidated by the courts. Let us consider in what position we should then be. Her Majesty's Government, supported by this House and the representatives of the people, have decided that in their view, for the protection of the citizen in the national interest, it is necessary to have such legislation, but the court rules it to be null and void. Let us suppose that a series of disasters follows which, it is believed, would have been avoided if that legislation had, as Government and Parliament wished, been on the statute book. Who is to bear the responsibility? Today we know where the responsibility lies. It lies with Her Majesty's Ministers and with us who assent to legislation or who support Her Majesty's administration. But there is no means of calling a court of law to account for having annulled that which the Executive considered to be necessary in the public interest.
Here I come more closely to the point made by the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan)—a point which illustrates the profound difference between the American constitution and our own, but which still leaves the fundamental problem of responsibility untouched. Let us imagine that to meet his case the Bill of Rights says "Except in emergency the citizen shall have the right of free movement from one part of the country to another". Who is to judge of the degree and

type of circumstances of emergency which, in accordance with the Bill of Rights, justify the withdrawal of that personal liberty? Under the American system, it is the Supreme Court. Under our system it is this House which must be responsible. The Government and this House must be responsible to the electorate.
I wish to make no reflection upon the systems of government under which other, and particularly other friendly, countries live. But the hon. Member has assisted me in bringing out and emphasising my proposition that a constitutional Bill of Rights entrenched as a safeguard is inconsistent with parliamentary government and parliamentary democratic responsibility as we know it. So when we are engaged upon the project of a Bill of Rights in the sense in which my hon. Friend for our purpose defined it, we should be under no misapprehension as to how far it will take us.
I confess that I am uncertain, after Britain's entry into the EEC, how far hon. Members or indeed the public of this country care at all about parliamentary democracy—which is the same thing as parliamentary sovereignty, because sovereignty and responsibility to the electorate are two sides of the same thing: those who are not sovereign cannot be within the same area responsible. But if we wish to retain the essential characteristics of a parliamentary democracy as we know it, I believe that we shall find it impossible to reconcile it with the enactment of or the attempt to enact a constitutionally entrenched safeguarding Bill of Rights.
I hope that no one will think that an hon. Member who argues as I have done is not tender of the danger that this House may override or permit to be overridden liberties that it should not, or that one should imagine that the law is perfect and that amendments are not cryingly called for which would safeguard rights which at present are inadequately protected. The conclusion that I come to is that, attractive as the idea may be of having a whole package, which, once for all, as it were, secures human rights in this country, we shall find when we examine the matter that we still have to proceed painfully, gradually, partially by debate and by partial agreement, with an amendment here, a protection there, a repeal here, a reform in another place, and that unless we are prepared to sacrifice the very


essence of our constitution, that will be the only way in which we can proceed.

4.42 p.m.

Mr. David Lane: Today the safeguards which exist to protect the rights of the individual are weaker than at any time in this century. This is a situation which ought to alarm us all and to which we must respond. The hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) has done us a great service in enabling us to debate this subject this afternoon. I congratulate him on his impressive speech, which covered a wide area. It is only sad that on a subject of such great and urgent importance we have such a very thin House this afternoon, particularly on the Government benches.
People are worried—we know this from contact with our constituents—by all manner of problems. They are worried about the growth of power in central government and the similar growth of power in local government. They are worried about something mentioned by the hon. Member for Down, North and others, the new existence of enormous corporations, particularly in the public sector. They are worried that institutions of other kinds have grown in size and remoteness as well, so that the typical constituent is desperate about where he can take his grievances and get anything effective done to protect him in his struggle against remote authority.
There are other trends which should cause us concern. There is the threat—I will not develop it further now but we are all conscious of it—to the freedom of the Press today. There is yet another problem in the continuing existence on a disturbing scale of unfair discrimination in one form or another against individuals.
Looking particularly at Parliament and at this House, we see risks, too, of the manipulation of Parliament by minorities. Here I should like to quote a few words from an article published two or three months ago in The Times, written by the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk). He is not here today but I warned him that I would raise this matter. I was horrified by certain phrases he wrote in The Times as a serious contribution to the development of our democracy, and I wish to remind the House of some of his words.
He said:
The function of the Government … and particularly a Labour Government, is to impose its values on society. Its role is creative: to cast, so far as it is able, society in its image.
A little later he wrote:
Put simply what we are, or should be saying, be it ever so polite and ever so quiet, is that we are the masters now'. That, like it or not, is what politics is about. It should certainly be said firmly.
In his final paragraph he wrote:
What we lack, and what we must have, is a tint of arrogance …
That is certainly something which the hon. Member never lacks, and I think we should reflect on the implications of some of those words, as an example of the risk of extreme views held by a minority being thrust upon the whole country.
If that shows the possible risk of excessive parliamentary action, we see, too, a trend in the opposite direction—the erosion in respect of the law, the growing tendency of people to disregard laws that they happen to dislike. This, again, is something of which we have become increasingly aware and worried in the last two or three years.
These are painful trends. It is no wonder that there are strains in our democracy today, no wonder that our constituents have this growing feeling of unease and insecurity.
All the time, related to this, is the continuous increase in the volume of legislation. Whether or not it is controversial legislation, it is certainly not getting sufficient scrutiny. This was vividly described and illustrated by figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann). He said that we are, as it were, the sentries patrolling around the perimeter of the territory which our individual constituents rely on us to defend, and the truth is that we are not able at present, with the facilities that we have, to do this safeguarding job adequately. There is a great need—though this is a matter for debate another day—for better weapons for the individual back bench Member and better facilities of all kinds.
At the receiving end of all these uneasy trends of the last few years is the individual citizen. It is fortunate that the debate about the problem is growing compared with a few years ago, and I am


glad that we have this chance today briefly to carry it further.
Several hon. Members have referred to the Hamlyn lectures in which Lord Justice Scarman argued in favour of a new constitutional settlement which would include a Bill of Rights. My noble Friend Lord Hailsham also referred to the subject in May. His conclusion is that institutions which have served us well for centuries are now inadequate and need a complete overhaul. He appears to have come round to the view that the solution now may indeed be a written constitution. He envisages a self-denying ordinance by Parliament which would limit its jurisdiction and would involve some kind of entrenched safeguards for the individual against local and national authorities. He has sketched a programme for this changeover which would spread over a period of about 10 years.
Recently also my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) has advanced cogent arguments pointing out the dangers and urging the need for a Bill of Rights to protect the liberties and the livelihood of the individual citizen. He mentioned various threats to liberty concerning different aspects of our national life. He reminded us that the rule of law must begin with the individual—the individual being recognisable and society being an amorphous and remote body.
Where do we go from here? I believe that there is a need for a review of some kind—whether by a Royal Commission or by a more rapid body—of the rights of the individual citizen in relation to the State, the executive and his fellow citizens.
A number of constitutional steps are about to be taken or have recently been taken. Earlier today at Question Time there were exchanges about the Kilbrandon Report and its consequences. However, we all realise that the Kilbrandon terms of reference were limited and that that commission was able to deal with only a part of the whole problem. We now gather that the Government intend to go ahead with some sort of devolution in the wake of the Kilbrandon Report. There is to be a White Paper, and I hope that that will not confine itself to the relatively narrow terms of reference of

the Kilbrandon Report but will give us some idea and some lead from the Government about how we should proceed in tackling the wider problems with which we are concerned in this debate.
We have also had—almost accidentally, as it seems—the revolutionary device of a referendum. With all the tinkering that has been going on, I suggest that we need a thorough, new study starting from the point which was left by the Kilbrandon Commission and taking account of all the other recent trends and causes of the uneasiness that we feel today. I understand that some such inquiry, largely directed to the possible desirability of a Bill of Rights, is to be undertaken in the near future by the Conservative Party.
I am not saying today that the case for a Bill of Rights is proved. There are a number of difficulties. Some have already been mentioned in the debate. Another is that this would put a drastically changed rôle on the judiciary compared with the rôle that they have performed in this country, certainly for several centuries. Bearing in mind current public thinking about the judgment of judges, all of us would hesitate to advocate a major shift of power or of control of policy from the elected representatives of the people to any appointed judiciary, however distinguished.
We face, nevertheless, a dilemma about the rôle of Parliament, and it is necessary to question whether we have to accept the absolute unfettered sovereignty of Parliament, in the sense in which we are discussing it this afternoon, as an essential feature of our democracy for all time. In view of the changed situation of modern life with its complications, and of the strains that are being put upon Parliament and the consequent diminution of rights of the individual, it would be wrong to believe that the sovereignty of Parliament is a sacred cow that cannot, in any circumstances, be further interfered with.
I remind the House of the vivid phrase used in a recent pamphlet by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds. North-East, when he said:
…unless Parliament is prepared to limit its own powers of its own free will, it will nurture its own nemesis.
There are no easy answers to the problem. It would be a mistake to rush


enthusiastically towards a Bill of Rights as a wonderful panacea and the automatic solution. The nature of the problem is too complicated for that. However, I believe that there is an urgent need for a much wider examination than has yet been possible, certainly by Kilbrandon or by any comparable body.
If there is to be such an inquiry, I plead that it should not fail to direct itself to the matter of equal rights and equal treatment for all citizens. So far the attack on unfair discrimination has been piecemeal. There has been legislation against racial discrimination. There is now legislation nearing the statute book against sex discrimination. We understand that it is the Government's intention—in the words of the Home Secretary—to harmonise the powers and procedures in these two areas of action against racial and sex discrimination. We believe, too, that there is to be a further advance by the Government in the attack on racial discrimination. I hope that the Government's proposals will be well conceived. If they are, they will deserve support.
However, I want to widen the focus of the inquiry, because the time has come to look at the problem of discrimination as a whole and not in watertight compartments. I was impressed with the broader and more comprehensive approach taken in the United States—which I visited recently with a Select Committee—based on the desirability of equal rights in all senses for all citizens. I hope that if we are to have some kind of inquiry into the need for a Bill of Rights it will consider this area of human rights in the widest sense. Even if there is to be no special inquiry such as a Royal Commission, I hope that the Government—in whatever legislation they may be contemplating in the next year or two, if they survive that long—will look in a much broader way at the positive promotion of equal rights, rather than necessarily dealing with the problem of discrimination as hitherto in separate compartments.
To summarise my views, I very much support the motion that there should be an inquiry, although I am not convinced that the solution suggested is necessarily sound because of the difficulties already mentioned. The trends in the working

of our democracy today are very disturbing. The balance has tipped dangerously far in the direction of central and remote power. The individual has been thrown on the defensive and the time is overdue for the reassertion of individual rights. Certainly the existing safeguards have proved inadequate and some kind of long-stop is needed, especially a brake on the headlong production of new legislation of all kinds by Parliament.
A Bill of Rights, in the terms suggested, may not be the best answer. But the question is important and urgent, and the right answer must be found if we are to ensure the future health of democracy in this country.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Many people are asking themselves whether the constitution is now in balance. From my own knowledge of the development of English constitutional history, this House grew in power by taking on the Crown and using its powers of finance as a method of counteracting the power of the executive. In other countries there has been a more formal relationship between the various powers which exist. In the United States there is the segregation of powers among the judiciary, the executive and the legislature
It would appear that in the United Kingdom, over a period of years, there has been a change which has led to Parliament coming under the thumb of the executive. Some of that credit or otherwise, I suppose, might be attributed to the Irish troubles in the nineteenth century, when, with the emergence of the Irish Nationalist Party and its efforts to disrupt the proceedings of the House, the strength of the executive grew in dealing with and controlling the way in which the business of the House was conducted. There was also the growth of the power of party managers, which in a sense springs out of the growth of democracy itself, the right of the electorate, which is sovereign, to demand that those who are elected in its name carry out its wishes.
It is interesting that during the debate we have been hearing about what has been happening to the development of law in England and in Northern Ireland, but very little has so far been said about Scottish constitutional law. Scottish constitutional law is in many ways entirely


different from that in England. It was interested in the observation that this Parliament is sovereign. This is a concept which would immediately be challenged in Scotland, and not just by members of my own party. It was challenged judicially in the case of McCormick v. the Lord Advocate in 1953, when it was sought to indicate through the courts that the right or the nature of the Queen's title was wrong in relation to the constitutional structure of the United Kingdom.
In that case, the court decided that the citizen had no recourse in matters of public interest to contest the rights of Parliament or of the executive. In an obiter judgment the court made the very interesting statement that there was a constitutional structure in the United Kingdom and that that structure had been laid down under the Treaty of Union of 1707, which entrenched within the constitution of the United Kingdom fundamental rights relating to Scotland.
Some of those fundamental rights have long since passed into history. Examples of such rights are the right to levy certain taxes and the right to have a Scottish mint, which dwindled in importance and disappeared. Many of the fundamental rights have been retained—the right of the Scottish legal system to exist: the right of the Church of Scotland to have certain privileges within Scotland. These were all entrenched within the Treaty of Union. So if anyone says that Parliament here is sovereign, that may be a statement which would not be correct.
In practice, of course, it has not made much difference over the years. Certain of the rights became useless and were not to be fought over. Again, in practical terms only the Lord Advocate, who is a member of the Government, is appointed the guardian of the public interest. It is hardly possible in his position to occupy the two different roles of defender of the public interest, on the one side, and a member of Her Majesty's Government on the other. Throughout the years, he has signally tended to support the interests of the executive and of the Government.
It still leaves this fundamental position of sovereignty. Going further back into history, we find that instead of Magna Carta, which never applied to Scotland,

there was the Declaration of Arbroath, which, in safeguarding Scotland's independence at that time, made it clear that if the Scottish people so wished they could expel the King from the throne, which in the Middle Ages was quite a revolutionary doctrine.
Again, the Claim of Right in 1689 was different in many ways from the Bill of Rights which applied in England. Unlike the Bill of Rights, which said in effect "Whereas our King has left the country, therefore we must choose another", the Claim of Right said "Whereas the King has acted against the public weal and has been a traitor, we do expel him from the throne and do choose another." There arose from that the fundamental right of the people to choose their own executive and their own crown.
That was not parliamentary sovereignty. That was sovereignty which, according to the constitutional concept and a feeling in Scotland, was vested in the people. Therefore, we on this bench see no reason in principle why there should not be a Bill of Rights. It is in fact in the draft constitution which we have worked on, as a possible one for submission to the people of Scotland on the gaining of independence, that there would be, as in so many other countries, a Bill of Rights which would incorporate those main rights which have been approved by the United Nations and by the European Convention.
The question therefore arises of what should be done at present. Leaving aside the wish of my party to obtain independence for Scotland and what we intend to do, it is obvious that the constitution of the United Kingdom is entering on a period of change, if not of turmoil.
I believe that it would be a natural effect that, on the setting up of Scottish and Welsh Assemblies, and with the natural pressure which could come from that, there would be an extension of their powers, developing perhaps into a quasi-federal constitution whereby the authority of the United Kingdom House of Parliament here at Westminster would be confined in public matters in relation to its power to effect the governing and administration of certain parts of the United Kingdom. There would be entrenched clauses which the United Kingdom Parliament could not touch because the powers


would be delegated or appointed to the Scottish Assembly or the Welsh Assembly or the Northern Ireland Assembly, or indeed to any English assemblies which may come.
At that time consideration could be given to the building of a section of rights into that constitutional structure relating to the individual, relating to private right as well as to public right. In all matters in this House and elsewhere the happier society is one that manages to keep a balance between public right and private liberty. It is not always an easy matter to balance or to safeguard.
Last week I met some American congressmen who were discussing various matters relating to the planning and development of the oil industry. It was said by the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) that planning was one of those things which should be subject to the Bill of Rights. I was not sure at the time the hon. Gentleman made that point just what he was driving at. In planning matters there is control by statute which gives the individual certain rights. It is not perfect, and one of the glaring absences from that type of legislation is that individuals are not entitled to be given notice of planning applications. Therefore, not having been given notice, they are not always ideally placed to be able to lodge objections and so invoke the appeal and inquiry procedures which exist.
The comment which was made as a general one about the United Kingdom and the United States of America in relation to overall planning was that, by comparison with the United States of America, Britain was autocratic in the way in which it dealt with various rights. The United States has built in a very elaborate structure between the States and the federal Government.
One thing which can be said about the United States of America, whether one agrees with its system or not, is that its judicial system was at the end of the day responsible for flushing out the Watergate situation, was able to expose the executive to control, and was able to ensure that the balance which existed there came into effect.
I do not think that in the United Kingdom we have that defence to control the

executive. We have the three main constitutional functions—the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. The judiciary has declared itself free from deciding upon legislation except upon interpretation or enforcement. It does arrogate to itself the right to decide whether legislation is in itself legitimate in terms of the wider constitution.
On the other hand, there are the legislature and the executive, which are hand in hand with one another. Except in that short period between March and July when there was a minority Government and when the executive had to try to persuade Parliament as a whole that its intentions were sound and that its thinking was practical and reasonable, we have not had a situation where parliamentary government is in existence in the true sense. It is what the Government say and what they can force their own back benchers to swallow that matters at the end of the day. That, as hon. Members on the Liberal bench will say, is often in defiance of the fact that they are operating on a minority vote.
Those are the broader implications. A Bill of Rights should be earnestly considered by the Government. The number of complaints which have emerged from the United Kingdom to the European Court is certainly a warning that some steps in that direction are necessary.
But at the end of the day there is a need for wider vigilance, too. We have recently seen India, a country governed democratically for years, changed quickly from a democracy to a country completely under the thumb of the executive, and this being done while Parliament was in recess. It is the fundamental job of each one of us to ensure that such an event shall never occur in the United Kingdom.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I join other hon. Members in congratulating the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder), who has clone the House a great service by initiating this valuable debate.
I hope that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) will forgive me if I do not take up in detail his exposition of Scottish constitutional law, though I say at once that I felt that he presented


a forceful argument in favour of a Bill of Rights when he explained that inevitably, under the devolution processes which are likely to be set in motion, the regional assemblies, given the volume of legislation which they are likely to be processing, will probably need some sort of bulwark against the possibility of human rights being destroyed by that legislation. In that sense, a Bill of Rights passed by this Parliament could be the linchpin.
Whatever part of the United Kingdom we come from, we can all agree, I am sure, that the background to this debate is that we are living in an age when the sheer speed, pressure and complexity of modern life may cause even our most fundamental freedoms to be eroded all too easily, and often without much notice being taken of the erosion process. My right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) struck the right note when he gave figures showing the sheer volume of legislation with which we are being inundated. As a new Member of the House, I sometimes shiver when I realise how, during the 16 months I have been here, more than 2,000 pages of legislation have been added to the statute book and over 7,000 pages of statutory orders and regulations have been published. The idea that any one Member of Parliament, or even groups of Members, could adequately fulfil our watchdog function when we are swamped by such a volume of legislation is in itself a telling argument in favour of the Bill of Rights recommendations which we are discussing.
In the interests of brevity, I shall concentrate on one basic right, the right to freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Lest any hon. Members think that I am being a little fanciful in even suggesting that such a basic right should be included in a Bill of Rights, I refer them to the Bill of Human Rights of the Commonwealth of Australia, Section 11(2) of which provides that in Australia
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression. including freedom to seek. receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art or in any other media of his choice".
There are then certain exceptions defined in the statute, which, of course, cover

such matters as national security and the invasion of privacy.
If we had such legislation as a similar Bill of Rights in our country, one would have to admit that there are already certain restrictions on freedom of expression through our law of libel, the Official Secrets Act and the law of contempt of court, and perhaps some of those laws could profitably be redrafted in the light of a Bill of Rights. However, I wish to direct attention to certain specific examples in recent weeks showing, in my belief, that freedom of expression is being imperilled either by executive action or by legislation introduced by the Government.
The hon. Member for Down, North spoke of the erosion of freedom under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. I shall refer to the possible erosion of freedom presented by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Bill, which is still on its way through Parliament. Several provisions of that Bill might well fall foul of a Bill of Rights, especially those provisions which abolish the safeguards in relation to unfair exclusion or expulsion from a trade union. But I direct special attention to the clauses which facilitate the establishment of a closed shop in journalism, for a closed shop in journalism would almost certainly result in access to the media being restricted, probably to members of the National Union of Journalists only, and would probably result also in articles from nonunion writers being blacked, as has happened on several occasions in recent months.
The Government's shameful proposals to strengthen the power of the monopoly union at the expense of the interests of non-union contributors, at the expense of the interests of members of the smaller union, the Institute of Journalists, and above all, at the expense of the interests of readers themselves, which also would be damaged, has caused concern on both sides of the House. If a Bill of Rights had been in existence, I wonder whether such concern would have been quite so necessary.
There was an illuminating exchange in our proceedings in Committee on the Bill at a point when one of the Government spokesmen was explaining that all the Government were trying to do was to


return to the pre-1971 position. At that point, the Liberal Member, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith), intervened to say:
If the Minister will give an assurance that further legislation will be introduced this Session to deal with the liberty of the individual and to safeguard the liberty of the Press, on the clear understanding that we assist them completely to obliterate the 1971 Act, I shall be prepared to go along with that argument. Is the Minister prepared to give such an undertaking?"—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 16th Jan., 1975; c. 182.]
Of course, there was a deafening silence from the Minister. However, if he had been able to give an undertaking that a Bill of Rights would be brought in by his Government to safeguard certain fundamental rights and freedoms, such as freedom of expression, the enormous concern which has been felt and expressed by so many hon. Members about that Bill would have fallen away. If we could have felt "This just will not happen because it would not be in accord with the provisions laid down in a Bill of rights", we could have been better satisfied.
I believe that a Bill of Rights should guarantee a right of access to the media. As we all know, there has been, and continues to be, a disturbing incidence of censorship of the media, first and foremost by certain elements in the trade unions. Sir Michael Swann made a most effective and pointed speech about how certain articles had been censored by trade unions. He might have looked to his own backyard in television and pointed out that certain programmes have been blacked in recent weeks by the ACTT. This disturbing trend of censorship by trade unions could well accelerate if the closed shop provisions in journalism were brought into force, and a Bill of Rights would be a bulwark against that kind of obstruction and erosion of freedom.
A second threat to freedom of expression has been presented during the past few weeks by certain executive action of the Government in interfering with the right of freedom of expression. I refer, in particular, to certain recent activities of the Attorney-General.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. The hon. Gentleman

will know that that matter is sub judice. Perhaps he will leave it now.

Mr. Aitken: I hesitate to tangle with you in any way, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but may I put two basic points to you on this matter? First, I cannot believe that you would rule that no discussion of any activity by the Attorney-General should be mentioned at all, since the actions which I have in mind—I have not even begun to refer to them—have in fact been discussed at enormous length in the Press and on television. I submit that the idea that we may not in this Chamber discuss any of these actions in any area whatever must be unjustified.
Second, the specific matter to which I wish to refer is a writ issued by the Attorney-General on which judgment has already been passed by both the High Court and the Court of Appeal. I submit that such a matter on which judgment has already been passed cannot be covered by the sub judice rule, since the point of the sub judice rule is that the matter is still under consideration. In the circumstances, therefore, may I be allowed to proceed?
I am sorry even to be critical of the Attorney-General, because he is a former chairman of that admirable body, the British Human Rights Trust, of which I now have the honour to be a trustee, but I feel that the right hon. and learned Gentleman seems to have been somewhat less than devoted to the right of freedom of expression during the past few weeks as his efforts to suppress publication of the Crossman diaries have become ever more frenzied. Indeed, some of the Attorney-General's ham-fisted endeavours in this direction have gone seriously too far, because the writ to which I have referred, on which a decision has already been given and which, therefore, I submit, cannot be sub judice, said that the Government, through the Attorney-General, were seeking to forbid publication of "any material" which "gives details" of virtually any Government policy making at any time in the past 30 years. Thus the battle has been expanded into the dimensions of a war whose boundaries go far beyond the Crossman diaries and the boundaries of common sense. Mercifully, the High Court and the Court of Appeal ruled on the matter


and did not allow the judgment to proceed. As the Sunday Times said:
Thank God for Lord Denning.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) raised the interesting argument that there were fears about the position of the judiciary if a Bill of Rights was passed. On the whole, the judiciary, certainly as far as the freedom of the Press is concerned, has been a far greater bulwark against the erosion of freedom than this House or Parliament. As far as the freedom of the Press is concerned, I would not be too distressed if the judiciary was given a little more power. It has conducted its stewardship of this freedom more carefully than has this House.
Whether the erosion of freedom of expression is by executive action or by a trigger-happy Attorney-General—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not at all certain that the hon. Member is not reflecting on the Chair. To say that the Attorney-General is trigger happy is a personal reflection and the kind of remark that should be made only in a motion. I will allow the hon. Member to develop his argument, but I do not like these epithets.

Mr. Aitken: Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Speaker. Censorship of the media by trade unions or a move towards a closed shop in journalism and the restriction of access to the media are erosions of freedom of expression which would all be safeguarded by a Bill of Rights based on the Australian version.
I share some of the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), who pointed out some of the difficulties in legislating for such a Bill. However, in this debate the case has been more than three-quarters made out in favour of such a Bill, and I should like to see approval of the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton that a Select Committee should be set up to investigate methods of bringing a Bill of Rights on to the statute book as soon as possible.

5.22 p.m.

Mr. Leon Brittan: I welcome this debate and the fact that it is to inform rather than to

force us to reach a conclusion. I have not reached a conclusion, though I recognise that the basic case etched out in favour of the Bill is a formidable one. The tendency of Governments of both parties to erode the liberties of the subject and of the corporations, which have the right to exist in this country, has been illustrated fully in this debate. It would be very difficult to look back objectively at the last 20 years and say that there has not been an erosion of liberty in this way.
However, a word of caution is needed because there is a tacit assumption that almost any injustice or wrong that hon. Members can call to mind would be rectified, remedied or prevented by a Bill of Rights. It is by no means certain that all the matters mentioned in the debate so far would be covered by such a Bill at all. A number of the matters amount to maladministration and would be covered by the efforts of the Ombudsman rather than a Bill of Rights and some of the matters have been of such detail that it is almost inconceivable that a Bill would cover them.
There has also been the assumption that we are all fully agreed on what the rights of the subject are or should be and that the only point of controversy is how they should be enforced and protected. If anybody has to work out what the Bill should contain, he will find that the apparent unanimity will disappear like gossamer. There is real controversy as to what should be in the Bill.
One thing is clear beyond peradventure —it would be an appalling mistake to attempt to introduce a Bill until its contents and the method of enforcement have received the widest possible degree of agreement and consent in this House and the country. To attempt to introduce a Bill which itself became a football of controversy of party political or other kinds would be a remedy worse than any conceivable disease.
It is not difficult to see how controversy could arise in the consideration of subjects to be included in the Bill. The most obvious subject—one which would perhaps distinguish this side of the House from the Government side—is the whole question of property rights. Many a Bill of Rights would regard it as essential and axiomatic that a prominent provision should be the protection of the right of


property. Yet many Labour Members would be less enthusiastic in their support for the rights of property. They are entitled to that view, and they can argue it here and in the country.
Until we reach agreement on the content of a Bill, it would be hazardous indeed to embark on the adventure of trying to create one. Even if we do reach agreement—and this will be much more difficult than is sometimes thought —the question of enforcement and entrenchment remains. There have been a number of suggestions as to how this should be done, ranging in efficacy from the very weakest of measures to the very strongest. The further one goes to entrench and enforce a Bill of Rights, the further one goes to disrupt the present constitutional arrangements, which for good or ill, operate in the country.
The weakest of suggestions is that Parliament should be allowed to pass legislation that infringes a Bill of Rights only if it does so knowing that it is passing such legislation—in other words, if it has included in an Act an express proviso that it was being passed despite the fact that it conflicted with the Bill of Rights. The theory is that Parliament would at least have to put its mind to the question of whether it wished to pass legislation which conflicted with the Bill of Rights. Under that course, it would not take long for Governments to insert as a normal formula—and by common parlance for it to be accepted as such—a meaningless piece of mumbo-jumbo to the effect that the measure conflicted with the Bill of Rights. That is a protection that would be illusory and all the more damaging for being so.
One of the alternative methods involves Committees within Parliament which would have to decide whether legislation came within certain categories and whether it would require a certain majority to be passed or repealed. This is a more attractive proposal. It would give the parliamentary Committee entrusted with the task the most tremendous power, and I imagine it would be necessary for Parliament to have the right to overrule it. This is, at least, a possible avenue to pursue, although the history of provisions of this kind in other countries has not always been a very happy one.
The true Bill of Rights, as the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said, is one which enables the courts to say that a particular piece of legislation will not be given the force of law because it conflicts with the Bill of Rights. It involves necessarily a system of judicial review, and the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in pointing out that any system of judicial review is fundamentally in conflict with our present constitutional arrangements and involves a major disturbance and alteration to the whole system of Government. That is not, of course, in any way conclusive, because one cannot regard something as being axiomatically right merely because it has been the way of government over a period of time. At a time when our rights and liberties are being threatened I do not believe that a system of judicial review should be regarded as an absolute bar to a Bill of Rights merely because it is a fundamental innovation.
It would be an innovation which had great consequences for our constitutional arrangements, and it would give to the law courts a power which in the past they neither had nor sought. Until now the law courts have been concerned either with the determination of factual issues between individuals or at least the interpretation of statutes by comparatively narrow points of construction, but to give them the power of enforcing a Bill of Rights would not only give them a greater power than they have had up to now but would involve them in a consideration of issues which hitherto they have not had to consider in the same sort of way.
The only alternative would be to make a Bill of Rights so detailed in form that it would be inflexible and require a kind of frequent revision which would be inappropriate in such a fundamental Bill. The essence, for example, of the American Bill of Rights and Constitution, which have stood the test of time, is that they are phrased in a general form and their meaning is valid according to the deliberations of the Supreme Court over the years. In the early nineteenth century in the case of Marbury v Madison, the Great Chief Justice of the United States Marshal, when called upon to decide a question relating to the United States Constitution, adjured the court to remember that it was the


constitution that it was interpreting. In other words, the principles of interpreting a Bill of Rights or a constitution must be very different from those of interpreting a mere statute, and if that is so it means that the courts would be considering basic questions and not just the interstices of legislation which have been left open by Parliament in its wisdom or folly.
If the courts are to consider major social questions in this way one must ask, without disrespect to the judiciary, whether its members are qualified to do so, leaving aside any question of the democratic implications of requiring them to do so. They have carried out a very different role over the centuries, and, therefore, I would suggest that they are not at present necessarily qualified to do so. They have not equipped themselves with the form of legal consideration that the United States Supreme Court has always had because they are not as diverse in their origin and background as the members of that court. That court has always had among its number people who are experienced in government in a variety of forms, often in the legislature and sometimes in the executive. Our law courts do not consist of such people. They consist almost exclusively of people who have practised in the law, and there are very few exceptions. If they have practised in the law they have mostly studied the law. Legal studies in this country, although much improved in their quality, do not constitute the form of liberal wide-ranging education that the United States law schools, which are graduate institutions, impart.
It may seem a far cry from a consideration of a Bill of Rights to be talking about legal education, but it is fundamental to the question. If we are to impose a power of this kind on a repository other than Parliament, representative in a sense, if not in a democratic sense, of the long-term wishes of the people, we have to be sure what we are doing, to whom we are giving that power and how it is to be exercised. Great and unbounded as my admiration is for the judiciary carrying out its present rôles, I believe it would be extremely chary of undertaking such a new rôle.
These are my doubts and reservations about a proposal which has considerable

attractions. So great are the attractions that, in spite of the reservations I have felt bound to put before the House, I warmly support the idea of this concept being given further consideration at greater length in a more leisurely, authoritative way than can be done in a brief debate of this kind. I also express my support for the idea that the matter should be considered further, if not by a Select Committee, then by a Royal Commission, and if not by a Royal Commission, by some other body which is calculated not only to reflect the knowledge of history and law required to reach conclusions on these matters but to add adequate weight to the differing political views which cannot be divorced from this matter. These views have to be reconciled if we are ever to create a Bill of Rights which is more than a snare and delusion.

5.38 p.m.

Mr. Michael Alison: I add my congratulations to those already extended by my right hon. and hon. Friends to the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) on his choice of the subject for debate. The subject and the debate could rarely have been more timely than at present. I have a modest fact to put on the record. I wish that it was in my gift to announce the setting up of the Select Committee which my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) suggested. I can do the next best thing, which is to confirm that the Leader of the Opposition has decided to set up, on behalf of the Opposition at least, a formal committee of eminent jurists and lawyers under the chairmanship of the former Solicitor-General, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers). Its aim will be to carry out a study with a view to considering, first, whether there is a need for a Bill of Rights or some other modern form of written adjunct to our constitution and, if it considers there is such a need, how it can be protected and entrenched from subsequent erosion and repeal at the hands of a simple parliamentary majority. I believe this is a constructive step in the present climate which I hope the Under-Secretary will be able to cap, perhaps with that very Select Committee which my right hon. Friend suggested.
As I was saying, this subject is timely. I remind the House of the very significant and sharp change and "discontinuity" in recent constitutional practice to quote the word which my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Hailsham used in the columns of The Times recently—which has occurred in connection with the European Communities Act 1972 and the referendum which has now endorsed that Act. The referendum unquestionably invested that Act with a novel but none the less real degree of supra-parliamentary endorsement authority and, probably, durability that has created a significant precedent.
We cannot overlook the fact that a national popular referendum has endorsed an Act of Parliament which itself limits the sovereignty of that Parliament and which confers upon outside bodies—in this case the Council of Ministers and the European Commission—law-making powers under the treaties which place in the hands of the European Courts—not in any British court—the power and duty to decide whether the Council of Ministers or the Commission in making laws applicable in this realm are acting ultra vires. We cannot overlook the fact that for many years to come Parliament has effectively acknowledged a higher source of sovereignty than its own in the shape of the popular referendum that we have just had. To unscramble the 1972 Act will be politically impracticable for Parliament for many years to come, precisely for that reason.

Mr. Powell: rose—

Mr. Alison: I knew that I should draw the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) on that point, but I continue to assert that the very referendum has made the subject of the validity or otherwise of the 1972 Act virtually a taboo subject for the next decade.

Mr. Powell: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman if he has been endowed with a spirit of prophecy that can see a decade ahead. I intervene only to say that the Government assert officially that continued membership of the Community is dependent upon the continued consent of Parliament.

Mr. Alison: I must urge the right hon. Gentleman not to be too literal and—dare I. use the word?—legalistic in his

assessment of the present position. The political reality is that this House, in agreeing to a referendum, has bound itself in moral and practical terms to the results of that popular referendum, and the effect of that is to give some of our sovereignty to another extra-parliamentary source. We cannot overlook that precedent. Effectively we now have a supra-parliamentary source of authority within our constitution.
I do not believe that we should overlook the significance and importance of this in the context of today's debate because, leaving aside the merits or otherwise whether some new entrenched external code of individual or human rights is desirable in the present juncture of our constitutional affairs, the key question in the past has always been whether such a code or entrenched constitutional provision is logically conceivable in a system where Parliament is sovereign and can repeal or modify any such allegedly entrenched provision or enactment.
The fundamental discontinuity with the past is that this "entrenchment" proposition has become a practical possibility. We can think of extra-parliamentary safeguards, Bills of Rights or some other sort of entrenched provision in relation to the rights of individuals because the precedent has been created. We have endorsed an extra-parliamentary source of authority by the novel device of the popular referendum.
Perhaps for the first time since the early eighteenth century we can now consider the question of new constitutional provisions or safeguards on its merits because, by this new precedent which has been created, if we think they have merit they can be established and set up. A country and people which is prepared to entrench the European Communities Act and the provisions of the various treaties which set up the European Communities, will surely be prepared to consider on their merits other provisions which may be set up outside the ambit of Parliament which will have far more directly beneficial effects upon the life, property and prospects of individuals than anything in those treaties now entrenched.
I very much weigh the powerful arguments which the right hon. Member for Down, South nevertheless advanced in the context whether in reality entrenched provisions of a weighty and fundamental


kind affecting individuals remain seriously practicable or "practical politics" in the context, for example, of the harsh realities of a national emergency such as those he postulated as a possibility or illustrated as a past actuality. After all, the right hon. Gentleman would no doubt argue, in relation to what we have entrenched in the 1972 Act, that we are dealing with a different kettle of fish when we are talking about counter-terrorism Acts or similar measures compared with the limited range of topics dealt with by the European Community treaties. It is right to face this direct. It raises serious difficulties, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) and others have said.
It is nevertheless important to establish that it is by no means against our constitutional precedents to consider it desirable for provision to be made for statutory safeguards for the rights of individual subjects over and against the power of the executive and, I would say, of Parliament itself. One has only to think of some of the precedents—Magna Carta, habeas corpus, the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement. Lord Justice Scarman in his widely acclaimed Hamlyn lecture, quotes an important authority who says:
The omnipotence of Parliament was not the orthodox theory of English law, if orthodox at all, in Holt's time.
We have precedents both in the earlier Acts to which I have referred and now in the vivid case of the European Communities Act for bringing the whole question of safeguarding human rights in the twentieth century into view and into focus as something which we should seriously consider as our forebears did in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in the context of that time.
What then are the merits of courses of action that we could bring forward? What changed safeguards in our constitutional practice should be considered and evaluated by my right hon. Friend's new committee of inquiry? I believe that the first area that any committee should consider is in the context of the suppression or oppression of fundamental human rights and freedoms of which an unrepresentative Parliamentary majority can be capable. My right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton used the vivid

phrase of an elected parliamentary dictatorship.
The present Government are singularly unrepresentative. Less than 40 per cent. of the votes cast at the last election were in favour of members of the Labour Party and only one-quarter of those who were entitled to vote voted for the present Government, and yet it is both tragic and ironic that no Government since the war has been more disposed than the present one towards measures which threaten to infringe fundamental individual freedoms.
One has only to think of the case produced by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, East (Mr. Aitken) in the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Bill, with its direct threat to the integrity of freedom of speech and access to the media. There is a real threat to individual rights and fundamental freedoms in the education policy being pursued by the Government in relation to the choice of schools. In medicine, there are steps afoot either administratively or by statute to limit the freedom of choice of individuals about the kind of medical treatment that they may receive and the place of treatment. There is a limitation on personal freedom and on property rights by way of taxation, land ownership, and so on. In all these areas Government policy is railroaded through Parliament my means of a docile, nominal parliamentary majority in a way getting close to the point where the prevailing concept of natural justice for the individual as understood by the common law is being outraged.
I come to a brief reflection on the way in which our legal system has developed. Here I part company a little from what my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland and Whitby has said. The way in which the common law and the judiciary have evolved in the past 200 or 300 years has been a grave disappointment. They have evolved in such a fashion that they seem to be unable to provide a bulwark against the infringement of individual rights, against the affront to basic ideas of natural justice which the common law was meant to uphold, where statute law is concerned. Common law and the judiciary seem to be chary in their interpretation of statute law concerning the fundamental freedoms of the individual


My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mr. Gilmour) has brought out vividly in his book "The Body Politic" how culpable he regards the practitioners of common law in allowing a situation to develop in which judges and lawyers have been increasingly pusillanimous in their attitude towards statute law or administrative law in the light of what they understand to be the rights of the individual in common law. It is always risky to criticise the judiciary or lawyers in this House. I see that already I have the lawyers on their feet.

Mr. Peter Rees: May I put this thought into my hon. Friend's head, that perhaps it is another facet of the assumption of omnipotence by the Crown in Parliament and the fact that we are ready to disregard conventions which were regarded as binding by our ancestors. It may be against that trend that the judiciary is a little over-sensitive on certain matters. The fault probably lies as much with us as with it.

Mr. Alison: My hon. and learned Friend wears two hats most delicately in this assembly and elsewhere. His words are judicious and balanced. The point is, nevertheless, a fair one. There is opening up an increasing gap between the attitude taken towards individual rights and natural justice for the individual in statute law and that taken in common law where it is vigorously and marvellously upheld by lawyers.

Mr. Brittan: Would my hon. Friend not agree that the reason is that Parliament has insisted on enacting so many statutes and has repeatedly stressed its sovereignty that the courts have been driven back. They know that if they do not interpret the statutes in the narrowest of ways Parliament will intervene to enact another statute. Does that not support my basic proposition that because of this history, over the centuries, of parliamentary sovereignty and narrow judicial interpretation we should think twice about suddenly casting upon the courts the task of wider social decision making, a task greater than they have got used to over the centuries?

Mr. Alison: I take that point. At least in recent decades, perhaps centuries, the power and effectiveness of Parlia-

ment through its statutory process and machinery and the increasing enfrancisement of the people has made it difficult for the judiciary to disregard the reality of power behind statute law. This merely underpins the argument many of us have been putting forward, including I am glad to say my hon. Friend himself, that the moment has come to re-assess the dictum I have quoted, that the omnipotence of Parliament was not the orthodox theory of English law if it was orthodox at all in times past.
The way in which to re-assess and to reconsider this is at least to consider the possibility of some entrenchment of fundamental rights as understood in common law.

Mr. Powell: It should be remembered, surely, that the orthodoxy of the supremacy of Parliament has been coequal with the evolution of democracy and of the expression of the general will of the electorate in our constitution.

Mr. Alison: I readily accept and concede that point. But the common law and everything that is now understood by it antedates Parliament and the democracy that Parliament represents. Common law, with its fundamental concept of fair treatment for the individual in the light of natural rights through a predictable system of laws now needs to be reasserted in relation to Parliament and statute law. This is the validity of the case of those who want to bring forward consideration of something analogous to entrenched provisions over and above Parliament, such as Parliament has now shown itself willing to conceive of in the European Communities Act and the associated referendum.
All that I am asking for is a serious study of this proposition. My preference is for an approach suggested earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, East when he intervened during the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Down, South and mentioned the Canadian Bill of Rights Act. The purpose of that is to introduce what is called technically a canon of interpretation. That seems to be a valuable approach, the concept of a canon of interpretation over and above statute law imposing on the judiciary the obligation to think in terms of common law and its principles so as to determine


whether statute law is moving on the right lines.
Not only statute law is involved. There are the processes of executive administration which need to be brought under review, the way in which, for example, the Supplementary Benefits Commission is able, without publication of its code of principles for determining uses, to reach important decisions affecting the rights of citizens. All of this needs to be brought within the ambit of the common law. We need a close examination to determine whether this is feasible. We now have the precedent of the European Communities Act and the referendum. The moment is ripe to consider whether we should have some sort of external entrenchment. Let us seize the opportunity.
I hope that we shall get the promise of a study from the Minister and so move in the direction in which the majority of contributors to the debate would have us move—towards re-assertion of individual rights as understood by common law, the common law which antedates the ebb and flow of the concepts underlying a modern democracy and parliamentary government.

5.58 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summerskill): I congratulate the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) on making possible this important debate. As always, when we are discussing a matter concerning individual freedom and the rights of the citizen, we have had a thoughtful and constructive debate. A number of different examples have been given on ways in which hon. Members feel that the rights of the individual are being infringed. I cannot comment on them individually. Some of them may have been valid. The allegations about the Government were not so valid.
Views may differ about the best way of safeguarding individual rights, but, as this debate has shown, there can be no doubt about our agreement on the importance which we all attach to protecting these rights.

Mr. Lane: It is curious that we have had no contributions in the debate from any of the Under-Secretary's hon.

Friends. Is there any reason for this? It is very disappointing.

Dr. Summerskill: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the words of his right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), who said that no party has a monopoly of concern for the freedom of the individual. Happily, this is not a party issue, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not try to make it into one.

Mr. Aitken: There seems to be a monopoly of lack of concern on the Government benches.

Dr. Summerskill: We have heard a good deal of public discussion recently outside the House about the desirability or otherwise of a Bill of Rights. A number of eminent men with wide experience of the working of various parts of our constitution—lawyers, politicians and other constitutional experts—have made major contributions to the debate. One of the most distinguished has been Lord Justice Scarman's Hamlyn Lectures. Many of the views which have been expressed outside have been reflected in what has been said today, and some have been quoted directly.
As hon. Members will recall, when answering a Question on 21st April from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers), my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said that, while in his view the time was not ripe for a Royal Commission to examine the need for a Bill of Rights, he would welcome further public discussion of the issue in general. It is, therefore, useful and important that we have been able to hear the views of hon. Members and the arguments about the relative merits of a Royal Commission or Select Committee on this subject, or the undesirability of either.
This is indeed a subject on which there is a wide spectrum of opinion, not only whether a Bill of Rights is desirable but also about the form it might take, and the rights which it should seek to protect. This has been illustrated by the range of views expressed today. Different advocates attach different importance to different rights. But I think it would be fair to say that their common intention is to give statutory force to the laws and customs on which the rights and liberties of the nation are founded; to reflect


Parliament's respect for its constitutional authority; and to ensure the protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms.
Those who favour a Bill of Rights often cite, in support of their arguments, examples of the Bills of Rights found in other countries. Indeed, some examples have been quoted this afternoon. It is sometimes pointed out that this country, while rejecting a Bill of Rights for itself, has none the less in the past conferred on newly enfranchised Commonwealth countries a constitution which includes some such declaration of fundamental human rights. However, such provisions have to be seen in their general social and constitutional context, and, outside that context, comparisons with them have limited value—and may even be misleading.
Many of the countries which have Bills of Rights are countries which, unlike ours, have written constitutions. In some cases, these constitutions were created at a major turning point in the country's history in response to some radical change, such as revolution or the achievement of independence. What may have been appropriate for them is not necessarily equally suitable for our own very different system, which has evolved gradually—and for the most part peacefully—over so many years. And I am sure that none of us would make the mistake of thinking that, because we have no Bill of Rights, individual freedoms have been less fully protected here than in many of those countries which have. Conversely, those countries which have a Bill of Rights do not necessarily protect individual freedom more successfully than we do. It has to be admitted, I think, that there is room for more than one view about the effectiveness of some of these instruments in protecting the liberties which they declare. A Bill of Rights is not a fail-safe answer to all the problems which arise in the protection of individual liberties. Much more important is the respect which a society has, at root, for such freedoms and the importance which it is prepared to attach to them. That is the greatest safeguard not only for those individual liberties but for our whole democratic system.
But, having said that, I would not like the House to think that the Government

—or I personally—are committed against a Bill of Rights. If I have said that we must recognise that such instruments are no panacea, we ought also to recognise that they do have attractions. These have been set out very clearly today by the hon. Member for Down, North and others who have spoken in support of his motion—and I have a good deal of sympathy with much of what they have said, especially the view that in a democracy adequate protection of human rights is an article of faith shared by all. But previous parliamentary efforts to introduce a Bill of Rights into our constitution have not succeeded. Let us consider, therefore, the strength of the arguments against such an innovation.
In the first place, we must consider how much any such Bill would be likely to circumscribe the sovereignty of the Queen in Parliament, which has always been regarded by most people—although it was questioned by the hon. Members for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) and Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson)—as the prime safeguard of the liberties of the subject. Obviously, the precise effect of any Bill of Rights in this respect would depend on the nature of its detailed provisions, but if the rights were to be truly entrenched and binding on our successors that could be done only at some sacrifice to the supreme authority of the Queen in Parliament. This would indeed be a momentous step, and it is one which we should not contemplate without the most thorough study of all its implications.
Secondly, if such a Bill were merely to catalogue rights without any corresponding statement of duties, it would evade the central problem of social organisation, which is to maintain a proper balance between freedom and order, and to reconcile the freedom of the individual with the obligations of the citizen. No right can be absolute. Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, procession and demonstration—to which we would all certainly subscribe in principle—nevertheless have to be subject to some restriction, since there are circumstances in which their unrestrained exercise could lead, however unintentionally, to disturbance or disorder. Similarly, liberty and the security of the person must be circumscribed by the need to provide for the arrest, trial and punishment of those who break the law.
The balance between freedom and restraint is delicate and needs constantly to be redressed according to the circumstances of the time and of particular situations. Setting the balance is one of the tasks of a political system. The tensions created commonly have a political expression, and over the years they have commonly been resolved by political action, resulting in legislation designed to delimit the boundaries where rights and claims conflict.

Mr. Beith: Does the hon. Lady recall the occasions on which those tensions have led to the placing on the statute book of legislation which, in retrospect, many of us would have wished not to be there but which proves exceedingly difficult to repeal because Governments find it convenient to retain it even when the urgency of purpose does not dictate it? I have in mind parts of the Official Secrets Act and the Incitement to Disaffection Act which were passed under considerable tension. One wonders whether they should have been passed in their present form.

Dr. Summerskill: The hon. Gentleman is speaking for himself. Those Acts must have received the majority support of the House. If an Act is repealed, that also requires the majority support of the House. The hon. Gentleman has illustrated what I have been saying, namely, that there is a fine line to be drawn between individual freedoms and the restraints which are necessary in any society.
Whatever constitutional alternative were devised would have to allow reasonable latitude for adjustments and change. Two possible models have been suggested for a Bill of Rights. One would contain a detailed statement of the nature and extent of the rights to be protected. This would give rise to obvious difficulties for, quite apart from the initial problems in defining the rights, the provisions of the Bill would inevitably need adjustment in the light of changes in society's standards and attitudes; yet a measure which invited frequent amendment would be a mere shadow of what a true Bill of Rights might be expected to be.
On the other hand, the alternative model—a statement of rights expressed in general terms, with detailed interpretation

and application of its provisions left to the courts—would give rise to different problems. True, it would have the advantage of flexibility, in that interpretations and applications could alter over time as society evolved, and public opinion as to what constituted acceptable activities changed. But the generality of its provisions would inevitably lead to uncertainty.
A system of case law takes a long time to build up and so, for a considerable period after the introduction of any Bill of Rights drafted in such broad terms, it would be impossible to predict with any certainty what was likely to be judged as an encroachment upon fundamental rights. The task of interpreting such a Bill would also place a heavy burden on our judges, as was pointed out this afternoon, and involve them in controversial political matters which have traditionally been regarded in this country as the proper sphere of a democratically elected Parliament. There would, therefore, be a significant shift in the relationship between the legislature and the judiciary, the effects of which it would be difficult to predict with any assurance. As the hon. Member for Cleveland and Whitby (Mr. Brittan) pointed out, the judiciary would also be asked to consider basic social questions, which is not its usual rôle.
Finally, it is impossible to be certain how far a catalogue of rights drafted in loose and general terms would be found to overlap or run parallel with existing legislation. The undesirable result would be that some matters would be dealt with in two statutes which would be open to conflicting interpretations. In such circumstances, if a Bill of Rights did not become a dead letter, its application would be likely to lead to an increasingly complex body of case law, which would defeat a prime object of the exercise—the provision of swift redress for those whose rights have been infringed.
I have dealt at some length with the various arguments which have in the past been employed against a Bill of Rights because they seem to me to have considerable strength. But, as I have said, the British constitution is one which evolves over time, and we have, therefore, to recognise that the balance of advantage with regard to any proposal for constitutional innovation may also change. That is why, while giving due weight to the arguments which I have listed, we should


never—now or at any time in the future—regard them as being final or definitive. We should always be prepared to reassess them in the light of changing circumstances.
I am sure that the House will hardly need reminding of the recent developments which have had, or may prove to have, significant implications for the system of government in this country. The hon. Member for Barkston Ash (Mr. Alison) mentioned them and rightly stressed their importance. We have joined the EEC, and the arguments about the effects of accession on our constitution were fully rehearsed before the recent referendum. The referendum itself was a major constitutional innovation. The European Convention on Human Rights, of which we are signatories, and the interpretations placed upon that Convention by the European Commission or European Court, appear likely to make an increasing impact upon practices in this country, as in others, with what consequences we cannot yet know.
Referring to the European Convention on Human Rights, I should like to take up a point which was made by the hon. Member for Down, North and the right hon. Member for Taunton about the number of United Kingdom petitions to Strasbourg. Comparisons between the experiences of States under the European Convention on Human Rights are difficult as the periods for which States have accepted the right of individual petition are so varied. The number of United Kingdom petitions declared admissible—that is, worthy of deeper examination by the European Commission of Human Rights—was greater in the period for which figures are available than those of other States which are also subject to the petitions procedure. However, the number is not large. The United Kingdom figure for 1966 to 1973 was 43. A number of those were concerned with immigration and raised the same points. If those cases are treated as one, the United Kingdom figure is not out of keeping with those of other countries.
The fourth change or development which we are witnessing, and perhaps potentially the most significant of all, is the progress which we are making towards a degree of devolution for the various parts of the United Kingdom. But it is

far too early to say what the full implications of all those several developments will be. As their full effects become apparent, the Government will welcome further public discussion about this important issue. Meanwhile, wherever this discussion may lead, it would be wrong to suppose that the absence of a Bill of Rights in any way bars the path towards the enlargement of the true freedom of the individual and the enrichment of opportunity.
Many examples cited by hon. Members this afternoon alleged the infringement of human rights. For many of them there is nothing to stop Parliament from taking action where necessary. We have established legislation to create a parliamentary commissioner, a local government commissioner, a health service commissioner; the laws against racial discrimination and to enforce equal pay; and the current Bill to give equal opportunities to men and women. All those amply demonstrate the powers which Parliament already has. The Government will continue to protect the basic rights and liberties of the citizen and to ensure that they are effectively safeguarded.
The Governmet Departments concerned will also continue to make a careful study of all the implications of a Bill of Rights, and we hope that the public debate which has started will continue.

6.18 p.m.

Mr. Kilfedder: I am extremely sad that the hon. Lady was not able to respond to the feeling of the House and to offer the hope that there would be a discussion on a Bill of Rights either by a Select Committee or, as I suggested in the motion, by a Royal Commission. I am surprised that the Government were not able to make a reasonable offer, bearing in mind that the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General, and the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, have at different times proposed a Bill of Rights. It seems strange that the Government should not be willing or able to offer something definite.
I do not wish to divide the House on this motion as I believe that a Bill of Rights should not be a political football. I hope that the debate will at least mean that there will be greater pressure for a Bill of Rights and that an opportunity will occur again for a full-length discus


sion on the subject. For these reasons I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ONE-PARENT FAMILIES

6.20 p.m.

Mr. James Wellbeloved: I beg to move,
That this House, recognising the serious plight of one-parent families and mindful of the resultant deprivation suffered by over one million children, notes with approval the steps already taken by Her Majesty's Government to alleviate their hardship; but expresses regret that the Finer Committee Report on One-Parent Families (Cmnd. 5629) has not yet been considered by Parliament on a Government Motion; affirms its belief that it is intolerable to a civilised society for innocent children to be the victims of circumstance; and therefore calls for the presentation to the House of positive proposals to meet the main findings of the Finer Committee.
It is a surprise and a pleasure to find that the second motion in the Ballot for Private Members' Motions has been reached. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) for having allowed a short time at the end of his important debate for my motion to be considered by the House.
Last week the House was lobbied by Gingerbread, an organisation which brings together one-parent families for mutual comfort and mutual agitation on political matters and the implementation of the Finer Report. With many hon. Members from both sides of the House, I went over to the Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall to listen to the plea of mothers and fathers who were single parents on behalf of their children. We heard of their plight and the difficulties experienced by one parent in trying to bring up a family. That lobby has reawakened the interest of the House in the Finer Committee and in the action which the Government have already taken. I hope that today the Government will be able to announce new proposals on which they are about to embark.
It is a worrying matter that although the Finer Committee was set up in 1969 and made an extensive review of the experiences of these deprived families and which took over four and a half years to produce a report which was submitted to the Government in July of last year, we

have not had an opportunity of a full-scale debate in the House on the Committee's proposals. We are all indebted to the late Sir Morris Finer for the work he and his committee put into that report, which consists of more than 1,000 pages and contains approximately 250 recommendations.
The report is broken down into five main headings which are: the problem of ensuring a sufficient income to sustain the family; the existence of a non-unified basis of law to deal with families which suffer from these serious problems; the desperate housing plight of many families; the almost unprecedented problems of obtaining employment to earn a living to support the children; and the relationships between a single parent and the family.
One of the main recommendations of which the Under-Secretary of State will be well aware is for a guaranteed maintenance allowance. I intend to leave my hon. Friend a little time in the debate to tell us what is the Government's attitude towards a guaranteed maintenance allowance, which strikes at the very core of the problem. One-parent families need a single unified allowance, sufficient, not just to enable them to live just above the poverty line, but for them to bring up their children with dignity and decency in the hope that these children who have been deprived of one of their parents shall have a chance to prosper alongside their friends both in school and in later life in whatever activity they follow.
The public in general do not understand how many one-parent families there are and how many children are involved. It must be a common experience of hon. Members during election times that in trying to put over the case for the allocation of more resources to deprived children hecklers or hostile questioners argue that it is wrong for public resources to be used in that way. They seem to believe that one-parent families are in that position through choice, but that is not so for the overwhelming majority of such families. It is also thought that very few children are involved and that they can be catered for adequately by the local authority.
I welcome the entry into the Chamber of the hon. Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley). He and his wife have


played a distinguished part in seeking action on behalf of deprived children in one-parent families. Despite our political differences, I know that he will some time, if not today, make a serious and weighty contribution to our debates on this subject.
Approximately one in ten families with dependent children in this country are one-parent families. The number of children involved according to the Finer Report is 1 million, in 620,000 families. That represents a very substantial area of human suffering in terms of the absence of the prospect of growing up in a financially stable home.
My main criticism of my Government is that even after this lapse of time since they received the Finer Report, they have not arranged a debate in the House on a Government motion. My hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) initiated a short debate many months ago on the Finer Report. My fear is that the Government will pray in aid that short debate as an excuse for not arranging for a whole day's debate on a Government motion on the Finer Report.
My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State may tell us that the Government do not accept the whole of the Finer Report, but the place for the Government to put forward their attitude in detail and for their rejection of some of the recommendations to be tested is on the Floor of the House of Commons in a debate initiated by the Government. It is not enough for the Government to rely upon the worthwhile measures they have put into operation, on the short debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield, or indeed on this short debate of about three-quarters of an hour. There needs to be a full-length debate in which the whole case can be deployed.
I cannot believe that the Government reject all the 250 recommendations of the Finer Committee. There must be some which they want to accept and on which they are anxious to get parliamentary opinion so that they may test the possibility of getting legislation through the House on an agreed basis, which could go through almost on the nod. That could be done if the Government accept at least some of the recommendations that command universal support.
As my motion says, I do not believe that it is tolerable in a civilised society to have more than 1 million children deprived. We all know from individual constituency cases the great depth and extent of the problem. I have recently dealt in my own constituency with the case of a father whose wife died in the most tragic circumstances leaving him with three children. It has been the devil's own job to convince the local authority that he should have special help in the home. He has gone all out to maintain his job and to keep the family unit together, but it has been an uphill battle. That example must be repeated in innumerable cases across the country.
It is hard enough for a man with a background of stable employment and with a skill that commands some consideration by employers, but it is much more difficult for a widow who does not have that employment background, or that industrial or commercial skill, or whose skill dates back to when she was single. She has to find a job with an employer who will give her some degree of consideratoin, so that she may reasonably stagger hours to look after her family and earn a living. Most of these families are in this plight not because of the tragedy of matrimonial difficulties but because of the tragedy of death, and although matrimonial difficulties may be avoided by working hard at the marriage business, the chance of death cannot be avoided.
Whatever the cause and although some members of our society may not feel sympathetic towards divorced families and may not feel sympathetic to the unmarried mother, those prejudices should be put aside and the children considered, because the children are innocent, whatever the sins, real or imaginary, of the parents. It is the children who are the major sufferers in this tragic situation.
The Government must take positive action. It is not enough for them to claim that they have reacted swiftly to the Finer Report as they claimed to the Gingerbread lobby last week. They cannot claim to have reacted swiftly to the Finer Report when it has not been debated in the House, and this is the key question to which I want my hon. Friend to turn his attention.
We demand—and by "we" I mean not just some of my hon. Friends, for on this issue I can probably claim to speak for all backbench Members on this side of the House and I am certain that I am supported by the back benches opposite. We want the Government in a full debate to spell out their reactions to the Finer Report and to give at least the hope of future legislation and positive action to back up the moderate measures that they have already taken to help these deprived families. We want the full story spelled out and the Government's decisions tested in debate. Above all, we want positive proposals based on the main recommendations of the Finer Report.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Let me explain that only just over 10 minutes remain for back bench Members.

6.34 p.m.

Mr. David Crouch: I should like to say how much I welcome the speech of the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved). The subject has been raised only once before—by his hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman), again on a Private Member's motion.
The matter came to my notice only as a result of my meeting single-parent families and single parents in my constituency. We cannot all claim to be experts on everything facing us in the way of human, social and economic problems. The work of Members of Parliament is sometimes derided, but I take no pride in having found out for myself the problems facing single parents. For once I met a worthwhile lobby when I was approached by single parents and their children. Here is an area of deprivation about which successive Governments have not done the right thing.
Although we live in critical economic times, when every pound of Government expenditure and increased expenditure has to be weighed, we cannot ignore the deprivation that single-parent families are undergoing. I have been moved by some of the problems that they face, not least the degrading approach—degrading for them—that women sometimes have to make to the local office of the DHSS when they ask for supplementary benefit,

because it is not until the four weeks' statutory period has elapsed that a woman may claim benefit for lack of maintenance by a separated or divorced husband. Such wives have to approach the local DHSS office as it were on bended knee, and that is absolutely wrong in these times.
I take my hat off to the one-parent families for the terrific struggle that many of them have to make to provide a home life and normal opportunity for their children. All the single parents I have met, men and women, without exception have been struggling against all the odds to do the best they can for their children, including against all the odds generated by the Government.
Out of 600,000 single-parent families there are only 80,000 unmarried mothers, and they should not be condemned, but there is a certain feeling that all these people are a little beneath the pale, are unfortunate, because they are unmarried, or that they do not have the moral conduct that we have come to accept as normal. But the unmarried or widowed mother with young children to bring up needs additional income to do so. Unfortunately, hours of work do not always coincide with the hours the children go to school or come home and often the children leave school at 3.30 p.m. but the job goes on until five o'clock. Women in this position need a great deal of help and understanding.
I hope that the Under-Secretary will recognise that there is a universal feeling in the House on the subject of an area of genuine deprivation, and I hope that the Government will consider it sympathetically, notwithstanding the difficult times in which we live.

6.38 p.m.

Mr. Bruce George: In an age of increasing partisanship it is a pleasure to come across an issue about which there is unanimity in the House. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) on his good fortune in securing a mini-debate.
There appears to be almost a conspiracy to deny us the opportunity of debating this subject at any length. The last time it was debated was on a Friday following an all-night sitting and very few of us were here. Now, because of the circumstances, there is little time


in which to comment, and it appears to be a waste of time to deal with any specific item of the Finer Report. The main thing to do is to put over to the Government the desperate need for urgent action on the Finer Report and the need for an opportunity to debate it fully.
Whenever we say that more should be done to help the one-parent family, we are told that there is enormous pressure on public funds. Whenever we ask for a debate on the Finer Report, we are told that there is enormous pressure on the parliamentary timetable. The timetable should be more easily adaptable, and I hope that there will be a full debate next week and I hope not on a Friday.
There is a great deal of support. For example, an Early Day Motion on this subject was signed by over 150 Members. That is a clear indication of the strength of feeling that exists. I am sure that anyone who attended the Gingerbread lobby last week, including my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, will be aware of that feeling.
However, if the public were asked to strike a list of the most deserving cases, one-parent families would not be at the top of the list. We must all be aware of that problem and we must ensure that we do not inject into this subject any false morality. Let us remember that we are talking about children and widows, about divorced parents, and about unmarried mothers and over 1 million dependent children.
An obligation has been placed upon us to see that this area of grave omission is shown up quickly. I inject a slight note of controversy in that I believe the Government's record as regards poverty is one of which they can be reasonably proud. However, the Government have done much less than they could have done for one-parent families. On the other hand, it is wrong to say that they have done nothing.
We have been told how many items in the Finer Report have so far been implemented. The list is not a magnificent testimony to the swiftness of the action that has been taken by the Government. At the moment the number of recommendations that have been implemented are very few. Let me issue a word of warning. We must do more as Members of Parliament than say "Why do they not implement recommendations 121.

229 and 230?" Let us remember that the Finer Report was constructed as an integrated attack on the problems of poverty as they affect one-parent families. We must see the report not in isolation, not in terms of one group of recommendations, but as a report in its entirety. It is a well-constructed report and, as I said in a previous debate, one of the most important reports ever to come out of the report-making machine. We must see it as an integrated whole and we must do more than pick up one recommendation after another.
Why has not the report been implemented so far? First, there is the lack of finance. However, as has often been said, many of the recommendations in Finer would not involve any extra expenditure. The reason that there has been no swiftness in implementation is perhaps that the report trespasses on too many areas where those people making decisions regard their areas as sacrosanct. The Finer Report is a fundamental report that makes fundamental criticisms of the way in which we operate our system of Government. I believe that there are too many vested interests which are unprepared to let go of their areas of responsibility.
Thirdly, I believe that the report does not strike any degree of national popularity because of its very nature. I very much regret the vast areas of green benches facing the Minister and the similar areas behind him. Indeed, I especially regret the empty benches behind my hon. Friend. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House does not interpret the attendance of the House as an indication that there is not a great deal of enthusiasm. Such an interpretation would be injurious to the people we are seeking to help.
I very much hope that we shall have a full debate on this matter and that swift action will be taken. I hope that those who have the opportunity of saying a few words after me will reiterate what has already be said. It is clear that there is a wish to see action on Finer now. The action has so far been limited, and we look for further action. Indeed, we demand further action. I hope that we shall have a further opportunity to discuss this matter so that other Members who have strong feelings will be able to make them clear to the House.

6.44 p.m.

Mrs. Margaret Bain: I am aware of the exigencies of time, but I join in congratulating the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) on raising this subject.
All of us who have a social conscience must be deeply concerned about the deprived situation in which one-parent families find themselves. We are speaking not of a small group in society but of a fairly substantial group. We are talking about the unmarried mother who, despite all the talk of a permissive society, still has to face considerable problems if she makes the decision to keep her child with her and to bring it up in a family environment. We are also talking about widows and widowers who often, as the result of the sudden death of their partner, have to come to terms with being the breadwinner as well as caring for and looking after their children and bringing them up with the hope that they would have had had there been two parents.
We are also talking about the divorcee, So often the financial payment awarded by the courts to a divorcee, whether it is alimony, as it is called in England, or aliment, as it is called in Scotland, is not paid. When it is paid it is often derisory. That puts the divorcee in an incredibly difficult position. The result is that in many cases the children are put into care very much against the will of the one-parent family.
When we consider not only the social misery but the cost of putting children into care, we can ask the Government to set the cost against providing a meaningful allowance for one-parent families. It is variously judged that to put a child into care costs between £25 and £100 a week. The cost to the State could so easily be offset by meaningful allowance. That would encourage the rearing of a child in a family environment. My remarks are not meant to be disrespectiful to the various institutions which do so much to bring up the children who are put into care, but we all accept that the family is the best institution in which to rear a child.
I ask that the Government have three priorities when they finally get round to considering the Finer Report. First, I ask that there be a meaningful allowance, an allowance which will ensure that the child can be brought up with its one

parent in a satisfactory manner, a manner which is much more worth while than being institutionalised.
Secondly, I ask the Government to consider the need for crèche and nursery facilities. In the West of Scotland—I am sure that that area is not unique—there is a waiting list that means at least a six-months' wait for a one-parent family to have a child taken into crèche or nursery facilites. That six months is often the period which forces the parent to place the child in care.
Thirdly, I ask the Government carefully to consider the attitude of housing authorities to the needs of one-parent families. It constantly amazes me that so many housing authorities have some kind of puritanical attitude towards one-parent families. It seems that they will not give them decent living accommodation.
All too often the one-parent family is forced to live in slum accommodation and to pay Rachmanlike rent to landlords who are not interested in them apart from making money out of them. It is horrifying that one-parent families should be forced into such a situation. I ask the Minister to bear in mind that the so-called humane society in which we live will be judged by its attitude to the deprived sections of the community. One-parent families have enough deprivation to face as they go through the struggle of bring-up their children—for goodness sake let us not make deprivation something which is institutionalised.

6.48 p.m.

Dr. Gerard Vaughan: This is an area of deprivation the extent and significance of which is becoming increasingly apparent to us all. I suggest to the Minister that it is increasingly urgent that some sort of action be taken. There are over 1 million children involved and there are some thousands of children going into care in very unsatisfactory conditions which could be avoided.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) on introducing this subject today. However, it is deplorable that we do not have more time available for a debate of this importance. I do not want to delay the House as we are all anxious to hear what the Minister has to say, but it is well known that Conservatives would like to have a


full-scale debate on this subject as soon as possible.
I suggest to the Minister that there are a number of recommendations in the Finer Report which do not require large sums or resources. For example, there are the questions of family courts, nursing facilities, the system of points allocation, interim benefits next April and the collecting of maintenance. Surely we should examine those recommendations now, debate them, see what we can pick out within the resources available today, and go ahead.
Briefly, I would ask the Minister to give this subject much higher priority than the Government so far have given it—and please let us have a full debate as soon as possible.

6.50 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Meacher): I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Wellbeloved) on introducing the motion, and certainly on his choice of the subject matter. I congratulate him on the reasonable and forthright way in which he dealt with it. I note the support which he has received on both sides of the House.
I also wish to pay credit, as did my hon. Friend to the force and determination of the Gingerbread and National Council for One-Parent Families in their lobby last week. They showed forcefully how desperate is the situation of many of these families. If I may strike a personal note, I wish to say how deeply moved I was by their representations. There can be no doubt that one-parent families are among the hardest hit in our community and face difficult economic circumstances. Many of them feel desperately trapped in supplementary benefit terms despite the strenuous efforts which many of them have made to escape them.
The Government have been criticised for failing to implement the recommendations of the Finer Report. I hope to be able to assure the House that we have gone perhaps a little further than my hon. Friend said. We have been criticised for being insensitive to the plight of the 1 million children who are being brought up in one-parent families. We have also

been criticised for not having provided Government time for a debate on that report. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has said that he will seek to find time for a debate on this subject. I have taken note, as I am sure will my right hon. Friend, of the strong desire among hon. Members in all parts of the House for an early debate on this important subject. What I am about to say will underline the fact that, although there has been no parliamentary discussion in Government time, this does not mean that the Government have been inactive and have taken no action.
Let us examine the situation of the 620,000 one-parent families in this country in the light of the action which the Government have taken in the last year. The central handicap experienced by one-parent families is that of low income. In part, this is due, as the Finer Committee recognised, to the fact that in most one-parent families the breadwinner is a woman. Women's wages are still lower on average than men's, although the situation has been improving. We hope that it will continue to improve as a result of the equal pay and anti-discrimination legislation.
In part it is due to the fact that many heads of one-parent families cannot work because of family responsiblities, however much they desperately wish to do so. In part it arises because in cases of divorce or separation the other partner all too often cannot maintain himself and his family in separate households—a situation made even worse if he acquires a second family. Consequently, large numbers of them—we estimate about 40 per cent. of all one-parent families—are receiving supplementary benefit.
The Finer Committee's principal recommendation for tackling the problem of low income involved the introduction of a special social security benefit—the guaranteed maintenance allowance—for all lone parents and their children. The Government are not alone in their rejection of the Committee's favoured solution. Our position is quite clear, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has spoken on this subject. Guaranteed maintenance allowance, apart from being expensive—it would cost £250 million—is a means-tested benefit, and our purpose is to


reduce dependence on means testing. If a means test in the form of an earnings rule were not applied the cost would be £400 million. To pre-empt resources on that scale—as we would like to do, let me make that clear—against the known public expenditure background which faces the nation at present is extremely problematical to say the least.

Mrs. Bain: On the basis of 6,000 children in this group per year taken into care from one-parent families at a cost of £100 each, surely that cost can be set against the other figure. If one takes into consideration the problems of social attitude which often arise in the minds of children of one-parent families surely the extra expenditure would be worth while.

Mr. Meacher: I follow much of what the hon. Lady says, but even her calculations go only a small way to meet the problem. In terms of the public sector borrowing requirement there is a great deal of difference between money actually spent and the potential saving in terms of money which otherwise would have been spent. That is one of the difficulties in terms of its public expenditure consequences. I take the hon. Lady's comment about the desirability of that consideration.
We are aware of the financial difficulties experienced by many lone parents. Our strategy has been to introduce measures which benefit all vulnerable sections of the community and to provide where possible, new benefits as of right. This has been our strategy since we came into office. Three increases in social security benefits will have taken place in the 18 months between July 1974 and December this year. Altogether this means that £1,000 million extra in real terms, not in money value terms, is being spent on these benefits in the two years up to 1975–76.
We have decided to concentrate our resources on boosting the standard of living of those who are the most defenceless members of the community, namely old-age pensioners, widows, invalidity pensioners, and dependent children. This help includes a long overdue increase in family allowances which were left to

wither on the vine since the last increase in 1968. That increase alone will cost £180 million net of offsets in social security dependency benefits.
We must not ignore the extent to which this group of people has been assisted. First of all, we must note that 100,000 widows with young children will benefit as a result of these extra resources. For example, a widow with three dependent children who was receiving £17·25 a week when we took office, now, after the last April uprating, receives £25·55 per week. All families with more than one child will benefit from the increase in family allowances. Those on supplementary benefit will receive the full equivalent value of these increases. They have also benefited from other measures such as the increase in needs allowance in respect of rent rebates and rent allowances. Therefore, in the area of family support we have done more than merely uprate family allowances and family income supplements.
We will introduce a provision in terms of child benefits from April 1977. That scheme will involve payment of cash allowances to the mother for all children in the family including the first. That legislation goes further. There will be an interim benefit of £1·50 a week for the first child in the one-parent family and that, subject to parliamentary approval, will apply from April 1976.

Mrs. Bain: rose—

Mr. Meacher: I have little time left to complete my remarks. No doubt the hon. Lady was about to ask me about disregards to which I am coming.
Except in a few cases where the entitlement to supplementary benefit is small, the interim benefit will not help those one-parent families on supplementary benefits. Those whom the benefit will help have an income above or even below the supplementary benefit level.
On the question of disregards, I know that a great deal of feeling has been expressed. I cannot stress too strongly that one of our major aims in our social policy is to lift what the normal family has per week possibly over supplementary benefits. That is why we have concentrated the resources on non-means


tested benefits, family allowances and non-contributory invalidity pensions—

It being Seven o'clock, the proceedings on the motion lapsed, pursuant to Standing Order No. 6 (Precedence of Government business).

PETROLEUM AND SUBMARINE PIPE-LINES BILL (ALLOCATION OF TIME)

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Price: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I refer to paragraph 8 of this motion, which states:
8. Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business) shall not apply on an allotted day.
You may remember, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that in 1972 there was a good deal of discussion on whether this sort of guillotine motion should kill Ten-Minute Rule Bills. Certain assurances were given in 1972 by the then Leader of the House, and on the last two guillotine motions it has become an established practice of this House to protect back bench Members' time by leaving out any paragraph of this kind. Many of us on both sides of the House were of the opinion that this was, indeed, the established practice of the House. Can you give us any guidance as to why established practices and the rights of back bench Members have been suddenly eroded?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may I say a word in explanation'? I think a number of factors are involved. First, there is the need to hold a balance between private Members' time and the rights of Members who wish to speak under this timetable motion. I think it is a very careful balance between private Members' time and the rights of Members who wish to speak under this timetable motion. I think it is a very careful balance, and it is my duty as Leader of the House to ensure that the maximum time is avail-

That the following provisions shall apply to the remaining Proceedings on the Bill:


Committee


1. The Standing Committee to which the Bill is allocated shall report the Bill to the House on or before the 15th day of July 1975.

able for the Bill and not allow it to be eroded.

Secondly, at this period in the Session it is impossible for any Private Members' Bill to reach the statute book. Even with the maximum of good will from the Government or the maximum of luck, no Private Member's Bill could reach the statute book.

The third factor is that if any hon. Member wishes to introduce a Bill at this late stage he can do so under Standing Order 37. The only inhibition which is placed on private Members is the right to make a speech in support of their Bills.

In view of the lateness of the Session and the importance of the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-Lines Bill and my desire to give as much time as possible to that Bill, I decided on this occasion to insert the part of the motion to which exception is taken and which would exclude private Members' Ten-Minute Rule Bills on two days. I do not think that is asking too much of a sacrifice from private Members.

Mr. John Peyton: Further to that point of order. There is a point of principle here. Almost every change which takes place in parliamentary procedure is designed to facilitate the executive. This is a tendency which I personally find very objectionable, and it is one to which Oppositions particularly would wish to object. I think the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) has raised an important point of principle. I do not know whether you will select his amendment, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I wish to point out that this is a matter on which the Opposition take a very serious attitude.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): The hon. Member had informed Mr. Speaker of his intention to raise this matter. Mr. Speaker has decided that the hon. Member may have leave to move an amendment to leave out lines 57 to 59, if he succeeds in catching the eye of whoever is in the Chair later in the debate.

7.4 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn): I beg to move,

5
Report and Third Reading



2.—(1) The Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading of the Bill shall be completed in two allotted days and shall be brought to a conclusion at Seven o'clock on the second of those days; and for the purposes of Standing Order No. 43 (Business Committee) this Order shall be taken to allot to the Proceedings on Consideration such part of those days as the Resolution of the Business Committee may determine.


10
(2) The Business Committee shall report to the House their resolutions as to the Proceedings on Consideration of the Bill, and as to the allocation of time between those Proceedings and Proceedings on Third Reading, not later than the second day on which the House sits after the day on which the Chairman of the Standing Committee reports the Bill to the House.


15
(3) The resolutions in any report made under Standing Order No. 43 (Business Committee) may be varied by a further report so made, whether or not within the time specified in sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph, and whether or not the resolutions have been agreed to by the House.


20
(4) The resolutions of the Business Committee may include alterations in the order in which proceedings on Consideration of the Bill are taken.


Procedure in Standing Committee


25
3.—(1) At a Sitting of the Standing Committee at which any Proceedings on the Bill are to be brought to a conclusion under a Resolution of the Business Sub-Committee the Chairman shall not adjourn the Committee under any Order relating to the sittings of the Committee until the Proceedings have been brought to a conclusion.


30
(2) No Motion shall be made in the Standing Committee relating to the sitting of the Committee except by a Member of the Government, and the Chairman shall permit a brief explanatory statement from the Member who makes, and from a Member who opposes, the Motion, and shall then put the Question thereon.



4. No Motion shall be made to postpone any Clause, Schedule, new Clause or new Schedule but the resolutions of the Business Sub-Committee may include alterations in the order in which Clauses, Schedules, new Clauses and new Schedules are to be taken in the Standing Committee.


35
Conclusion of Proceedings in Committee



5. On the conclusion of the Proceedings in any Committee on the Bill the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.


Dilatory motions


40
6. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, Proceedings on the Bill shall be made in the Standing Committee or on an allotted day except by a Member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.


Extra time on allotted days



7.—(1) On the first allotted day paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the Proceedings on the Bill for one hour after Ten o'clock.


45
(2) Any period during which Proceedings on the Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) shall be in addition to the period under this paragraph.


50
(3) If an allotted day is one to which a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 stands over from an earlier day, a period of time equal to the duration of the Proceedings upon that Motion shall be added to the period during which Proceedings on the Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under this paragraph, and the bringing to a conclusion of any Proceedings on the Bill which, under this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee, are to be brought to a conclusion on that day shall also be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on the Motion.


55


Standing Order No. 13



8. Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business) shall not apply on an allotted day.


60
Private business


65
9. Any private business which has been set down for consideration at Seven o'clock on an allotted day shall, instead of being considered as provided by the Standing Orders, be considered at the conclusion of the Proceedings on the Bill on that day, and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business for a period of three hours from the conclusion of the Proceedings on the Bill or, if those Proceedings are concluded before Ten o'clock, for a period equal to the time elapsing between Seven o'clock and the completion of those Proceedings.

Conclusion of Proceedings


70
10.—(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any Proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee or the Business Sub-Committee and which have not previously been brought to a conclusion, the Chairman or Mr Speaker shall forthwith proceed to put the following Question (but no others), that is to say—



(a) the Question or Questions already proposed from the Chair, or necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed (including, in the case of a new Clause or new Schedule which has been read a second time, the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill);


75
(b) the Question on any amendment or Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of any Member, if that amendment or Motion is moved by a Member of the 80 Government;


80
(c) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded; and on a Motion so moved for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Mr Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.


85
(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall not be interrupted under 85 any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.


90
(3) If, at Seven o'clock on an allotted day, any Proceedings on the Bill which, under this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee, are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time have not been concluded, any Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) which, apart from this Order, would stand over to that time shall stand over until those Proceedings have been concluded.


95
(4) If a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 stands over to Seven o'clock on an allotted day, or to any later time under sub-paragraph (3) above, the bringing to a conclusion of any Proceedings on the Bill which, under this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee, are to be brought to a conclusion on that day at any hour falling after the beginning of the Proceedings on the Motion shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on that Motion.


Supplemental orders


100
11.—(1) The Proceedings on any Motion moved in the House by a Member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order (including anything which might have been the subject of a report of the Business Committee or Business Sub-Committee) shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after they have been commenced, and the last foregoing paragraph shall apply as if the Proceedings were Proceedings on the Bill on an allotted day.


105
(2) If on an allotted day on which any Proceedings on the Bill are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before that time no notice shall be required of a Motion moved at the next sitting by a Member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.


110
Saving



12. Nothing in this Order or in a Resolution of the Business Sub-Committee or the Business Committee shall—



(a) prevent any Proceedings to which the Order or Resolution applies from being taken or completed earlier than is required by the Order or Resolution, or


115
(b) prevent any business (whether on the Bill or not) from being proceeded with on any day after the completion of all such Proceedings on the Bill as are to be taken on that day.


Re-committal


120
13.—(1) References in this Order to Proceedings on Consideration or Proceedings on 120 Third Reading include references to Proceedings, at those stages respectively, for, on or in consequences of re-committal.


125
(2) On an allotted day no debate shall be permitted to any Motion to re-commit the Bill (whether as a whole or otherwise), and Mr Speaker shall put forthwith any Question necessary to dispose of the Motion, including the Question on any amendment moved to the Question.


Interpretation



14.—(1) In this Order—


130
'allotted day' means any day (other than a Friday) on which the Bill is put down as first Government Order of the Day provided that a Motion for allotting time to 130 the Proceedings on the Bill to be taken on that day either has been agreed on a previous day, or is set down for consideration on that day;



'the Bill' means the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill;



'Resolution of the Business Sub-Committee' means a Resolution of the Business Sub-Committee as agreed to by the Standing Committee;


135
'Resolution of the Business Committee' means a Resolution of the Business Committee as agreed to by the House.

I ask the indulgence of the House as Secretary of State for Energy making his maiden speech on a timetable motion. That must be almost unprecedented. I aim to be brief and to set the case before the House as best I can.

The timetable motion follows the normal pattern. The objective is to make it possible for the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill to be brought back to this House not later than 15th July, and also to provide that the Report and Third Reading should be conducted in one and a half days, terminating at 7 o'clock on the second day.

In that connection perhaps I should tell the House that we are aiming, as far as we can, to bring forward the amendments which the Govenment would wish to establish, some of them in response to points that have been made in Committee and that we would publish those amendments as early as possible to give Members of the Committee and other interested Members an opportunity of seeing them in advance.

This timetable motion will permit the Bill to pass through all its stages in this House this month and, if their Lordships so decide, to return for enactment during the present Session. I believe that the provision that we have made, which will allow 25 sittings to take place on this Bill, is reasonable.

If the House at 10 o'clock tonight determines that this timetable motion should be passed there will be the normal Business Committee, and it will be the Government's intention to offer the greatest flexibility to the Opposition on the Committee to allow them to deal with the remainder of the Bill in Committee, and indeed flexibility in the times and number of sittings, so that the timetable may be executed with the maximum facilities for the Opposition in Standing Committee.

Perhaps for the record—I will not make too much of this—I might report progress on the work of the Committee. There have been 19 sittings occupying 60 hours, and there have been 19 clauses and one schedule dealt with out of a Bill which has some 49 clauses and four schedules. There were 500 amendments tabled, and those amendments are consequential on I must qualify that by saying that many of

the prime amendment. Of the 500 amendments that have been tabled, 230 with their consequentials have been dealt with. There were 100 Government amendments of which 30 were—

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: One hundred Government amendments?

Mr. Benn: Thirty of them were substantial and the rest were consequential, and some of them met points raised by the Opposition in Committee.
Clause 1 alone occupied eight sittings of the Committee and 19 hours of debate. Clause 2 occupied two and a half sittings and eight hours of debate, and Clause 3 occupied five hours of debate. It is no part of my purpose to make a complaint about the conduct of the Opposition. I shall come back to the attitude that the House might adopt to the timetable motion
This is a very important Bill. Some of its provisions are complicated. Speaking as a newcomer to the issue I must make it clear that I find it a difficult Bill. I say that candidly. I am fortunate, as all Ministers are, in being well briefed in detail by officials on the meaning of all the clauses and the way in which they would operate, and, of course, well briefed, as any Minister is, on the meaning of Opposition amendments.
As I say, it is no part of my purpose to make a complaint, but this is an essential Bill and I shall come to the reasons why we regard it as essential. Long before the guillotine proposal was considered by my colleagues I had tried to be candid with the Committee and make it clear that we hoped and needed to get the Bill cleared through the Committee by the middle of July, and then go to Report and Third Reading by the end of the month so as to allow the other place to complete its discussions.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The right hon. Gentleman a moment ago gave figures of the number of amendments which have been tabled and dealt with, including Government amendments. Can he say whether the figures of Government amendments which he gave include the further 12 amendments, none of which is consequential on another, which have been tabled today?

Mr. Benn: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for drawing my attention to that matter. Those amendments are not included in the figures that I gave. I made it clear that we have undertaken to make amendments public as early as we can, even where we have passed that part of the Bill and would really be giving advance notice of the likelihood of amendments on Report.
I realise that most hon. Members present are members of the Committee. Therefore, what I have to say now about the rôle of the Bill and its structure will be known to many hon. Members present. However, perhaps I may remind the House very briefly of the five Parts of the Bill.
Part I seeks to establish the British National Oil Corporation. There are aspects of that structure which are novel and that in part is why we took so much time in the early days on the Bill. There will be two civil servants on the board, powers of specific directive and special provisions for safeguarding the National Oil Account.
Part II, which we have been discussing recently, deals with the existing licences, namely, the licences that have already been granted by previous Governments. We are seeking to make some changes by the introduction of depletion control, determining the rate of exploration, providing for royalty in certain circumstances to be taken in kind, and making legislative provision for dealings in existing licence rights.
Part III of the Bill deals with pipelines and provides for control over routes, and for the sharing of certain pipelines to avoid unnecessary duplication, and it also provides that pollution risks should be minimised. It also deals with the control of pipelines and safety. This part of the Bill lies ahead of the Committee, but to a large extent it is non-controversial. I am not saying that it does not raise important matters, but it is not very controversial.
Part IV of the Bill deals with the refinery policy and authorisations. When the Committee comes to deal with this part, although there will be important technical points that hon. Members may wish to raise, it should not arouse anything like the same amount of debate as Part I

or Part II, which deal with the BNOC and provisions for existing licences.
Part V and the Schedules deal with miscellaneous matters.
The Bill is very important. Although it was introduced rather later in the Session—I have no doubt that this point will be made by the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton)—than is altogether desirable, because all Ministers are eager to get their Bills out early, the Bill deals with policy matters which have been fully anticipated in our policy statements and discussions about the North Sea and oil exploration. I certainly do not have to remind the House that with 20 per cent. of our import bill coming in imported oil—

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Can the Minister indicate why the Bill was not introduced three months earlier so as to enable it to be cleared in time?

Mr. Benn: The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) has asked a perfectly fair question, but he will know that I am not the man to ask because I did not have responsibility.

Mr. Skeet: But the right hon. Gentle-has advice.

Mr. Benn: I am trying to answer the hon. Gentleman's question. I am the godfather of the Bill. I hope that term is not improperly understood by the House. I am not claiming paternity of the Bill, although I am happy to adopt it as a foster child. Therefore, I cannot give to the hon. Gentleman what one might call the Crossman-type recollections as to what actually happened at various stages and that prevented the Bill from coming forward, except to say that the hon. Gentleman will know that the Bill touches on very important matters of policy and the Government obviously wanted to get it right in detail, as far as that was possible, before it was published.
In recommendation of the Bill—which I am seeking as modestly as I can—security of energy supplies is also a factor that any Government of any political complexion would be bound to have very much in mind. That lies behind our own thinking in proceeding with our proposals. The Government regard it as essential to have the necessary control over this new resource, and particularly the participation


discussions that are now in progress will require the enactment of the Bill. The Government believe that adequate controls over the rate of production are necessary.
Those controls also hinge upon the enactment of the Bill. As has been made clear in many of the discussions that have taken place in Committee, we also think it very important, as a host Government of these reserves of oil, that the BNOC should be available to acquire knowledge and know-how in this important field. That too, hinges upon the enactment of the Bill.
We cannot make adequate progress with the next round of licensing, which will be watched with keen interest by the House, unless we have the Bill on the statute book. We must be able to settle the pipeline policy and safety factors. We want to be able to implement our refinery policy which also bears upon the benefits that might flow from the discovery of the oil. The Bill also makes possible loans and guarantees and gives parliamentary approval to the Burmah support operation which arose last winter.
It is not my intention to detain the House too long, because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak, and, no doubt, many of the points that I have mentioned will be dealt with by them. However, I should like to say a little about the attitude of the House of Commons to timetable motions deriving, in my case, from 25 years in the House, because there has undoubtedly been a fairly considerable change in attitude towards such motions. Anyone who has read his parliamentary history will know that when Mr. Gladstone, a great Liberal leader, first found it necessary to introduce any limitation in parliamentary debate there was no English word to cover what he had in mind. The French word cloture was used to cover something that was so foreign in its concept that Parliament did not really know how to handle it.
Since then there has been a long series of arguments about whether it is ever right in any circumstances to limit parliamentary debate. Certainly the early guillotine motions that I remember from when I was a new Member of the House—and they continued until quite recently—were usually characterised by charges of

obstruction by angry Ministers and charges of dictatorship by angry Oppositions. However, as Parliaments came and went, it became common for people to quote one another's speeches, and Oppositions would quote what the previous Government had done and vice versa. My own view—and I can only put it to the House for consideration in voting on this motion—is that there has been a changing parliamentary mood about timetable motions.
The House and the country—in so far as it observes our procedural discussions—increasingly recognise that what is really at issue in all debates about timetables is whether the provision of time is genuinely reasonable. There is a growing disenchantment with the idea of the all-night sitting as an alternative to a sensible timetable motion. There was a time when one could not even get colleagues to consider the possibility of a timetable until one had proved one's virility by sitting up all night. However, that is not the best way to get serious consideration of important Bills. It is very hard on the staff of the House. As hon. Members recently discovered, there is not much Press coverage of their impassioned speeches in the early hours of the morning. A speech has to be very dramatic to penetrate the PA tapes. On the whole the House and its Committees want to look more seriously at legislation. Therefore, I think I am right in saying that the mood is shifting towards sensible timetabling as against the old method of—

Mr. Peter Rost: Does the Minister agree that this timetable motion has been calculated, not in order to give reasonable time for debate, but to allow the Bill to be completed by 15th July, thus providing for only four more sittings?

Mr. Benn: I shall come to that point in a moment. As I expect the House has guessed, I shall not devote all my attention to the problems of timetables and when they should be applied.
It is true that the case for timetable motions on the part of whatever Government happen to be in power is that, where a major Bill in the main programme is likely to be lost through undue delay in Committee, for whatever reason, the Government are bound to turn their


minds to means by which the Bill can be brought back to the Floor of the House to have its Report and Third Reading.
On the other hand, the problem here is that, if a timetable comes late in the progress of a Bill, it tends to distort the amount of time devoted to the earlier rather than the later clauses. This is where I come to the point that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) may have had in mind. It is certainly not for me to float at this Dispatch Box on a single timetable motion matters of main parliamentary procedure, but I have a feeling, certainly from the brief discussion that we had on the timetable in Standing Committee on a motion "That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned", that a rather different attitude would have been adopted had it been possible to see a timetable from the beginning, so that, perhaps, the Committee would have been able to divide its time slightly differently by agreement within the total time in order to allow full examination of all parts of the Bill.
That is for others to consider, not for me. I am trying to read the mood of the House and that of the Standing Committee and to invite the House tonight, leaving that aside, to look at the timetable motion that we have brought forward, allowing for all the circumstances that I have described and the urgent necessity for the Bill this Session. I invite the House to recognise that the Government have sought to be reasonable, and that in the Business Sub-Committee which will meet after the vote tonight, if the Government's view prevails, we shall hope to accommodate the Opposition as best we can to permit a wise and sensible conclusion of the examination of this Bill.

7.22 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton: I would not like to break with precedent tonight and fail to welcome the right hon. Gentleman on making his maiden speech—I must say that he is no maiden, but nevertheless, on making any maiden speech—at that Dispatch Box in his new capacity.
The right hon. Gentleman modestly confessed that he was doing so on a guillotine motion. I can only hope that such a monstrous example will never be

repeated. Nevertheless, I am bound to say to the right hon. Gentleman that he conducted himself in his most quiet and beguiling fashion tonight. He sought by his manner to be totally unprovocative and left all the provocation to the proposal that he launched at the House.
The right hon. Gentleman said in a very quiet way that it was no part of his case to complain about the Opposition's conduct. I should hope not. I have had a look through the proceedings on the Bill. The Opposition have behaved themselves in the most modest fashion. If I had been upstairs and sitting on the back benches, with which I am more familiar than the Front Benches, for obvious reasons, I should have been saying some sharp things to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) for his restraint, patience and tolerance.
The right hon. Gentleman said, very modestly, that he had been well briefed by officials. I know not whether this means that officials are in some way to be held specially responsible for this measure. I very much hope that they are innocent of conception.
I have spared myself the pain of looking at past guillotine debates. On this point I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. It is an utter waste of time, and I personally was not prepared to subject myself to such a dreary ordeal.
I was moved, as, I am sure, were my right hon. and hon. Friends, by the fact that the right hon. Gentleman had kind thoughts on behalf of the staff of the House of Commons. So often Ministers garnish their speeches with these nice feelings and do nothing to give way to them afterwards. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will have a brief conversation with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Local Government and Planning, or whatever his title is now, about his handling of the Community Land Bill, which seems to me, from what I have heard, to be absolutely flat contrary to the nice principles enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman.
I of course accept that these are occasions when we normally go in for a sort of ritual explosion of wrath which fairly rapidly afterwards gives place to reasonable discussion. The right hon. Gentleman referred to changing attitudes to the


guillotine. I do not believe that the attitudes have changed all that on the part of the public. I believe that the attitude changes on the part of Members who move from this side of the House to the Government side of the House.
The right hon. Gentleman has a particular facility for believing that anything that he is putting forward has a peculiar justification arising out of that fact. He cannot expect the House wholly to share that view.
This motion is necessary, not because of any action or tactics on the part of the Opposition but because of Government incompetence and Government delays. I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman wholeheartedly on the modesty with which he sloughed off responsibility on to his predecessor, where of course it properly belongs. On 8th November the right hon. Gentleman who is now the Secretary of State for Industry—we will not go into that now; it is too painful—said that the Bill would be published in a matter of weeks. On 9th April it was published. On 30th April we had the Second Reading. On 13th May the Bill went into Standing Committee. That is a very leisurely progress.
It is only now that the whip is out when we are in the straight and the House of Commons has got to adjust itself. The Standing Committee has got to move at the pace required by the administration—at the pace dictated by the executive. There is to be no consideration for the convenience of the House of Commons—or the convenience or rights of Parliament.
It would be wrong to suggest that all opposition to this sort of handling comes from this side of the House. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) said this in Standing Committee:
I do not want to be here as a Member of Parliament in 10 years' time saying that we made a damned mistake because we hurried the Bill to satisfy the scheduled plans of the Government. … Some of my hon. Friends may not like what I am saying, but they must keep quiet, and I will tell them why. If they were on the Opposition benches they would make the longest speeches against this kind of decision."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 10th June 1975; c. 223–34.]
What a pity the hon. Gentleman is not here tonight to repeat that charge.
I think that I should rehearse, even if only very briefly, the main dramatis personae who have taken part in this rather ugly passage. First, there is the right hon. Gentleman now Secretary of State for Industry. He did not play any very great part. I think I am right in saying that he appeared three times before the Standing Committee, made speeches on a sittings motion, and took part in a debate about the name of the British National Oil Corporation, but on no other occasion did he make any noticeable entry into the proceedings.
My right hon. and hon. Friends who are on the Standing Committee were devastated with disappointment by the fact that the niceties of the constitution prevented the presence of Lord Balogh, whom some of us regard as the parent of this measure, and they would have been delighted beyond their wildest dreams had it been possible for the noble Lord to be present and to explain what is possibly his child.
The Under-Secretary of State deserves a particular accolade. It was he who said—
one cannot paint the picture as clearly as one would wish".—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 15th May 1975; c. 63.]
In that sentence the hon. Gentleman got the whole spirit of the Government's approach to the Bill.
The hon. Gentleman then went on to say, with that optimism which wears off when people cease to be Under-Secretaries, that the arrangements had been "made clear" in the Bill. The truth is that the Bill is one which exhibits most of the unpleasing characteristics of modern legislation: it is diffuse, it is obscure, and in no case does it deserve compliment for making anything clear to anyone. The Explanatory and Financial Memorandum, as it is flatteringly called, is more noteworthy for its concealment than for what it reveals.
The right hon. Gentleman, arriving late on the scene, charmingly modest and restrained as he has been tonight, is so sure that his objectives are right that he sees even the most dubious means of achieving them as being not only relevant but even sanctified—a view which not all of us can share. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that it is necessary to get


the Bill, as he put it, by the end of July. To say that does not establish the rightness of the Bill. All that it establishes once again is that the Government were incompetent in not bringing this nasty mess before the House in time, and in not thinking out their proposals with greater clarity before producing them. The motto which the Government seem to follow in their legislative policies is "Slap some proposals before the House, then hope for the best; we shall get them through in the end".
In a pious and pleasing manner, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the importance of the security of energy supplies. I do not think that anyone would challenge that with particular force, but what we still wait to have explained to us is how this wretched measure contributes in any way to the security of our energy supplies. No such thing has yet been done.
There is one other quotation I should like to make, because it is especially spine-chilling, coming from the right hon. Gentleman as it did. On 17th June in the Standing Committee he said:
The only real way for a nation to find out how to do a job is to do it itself, particularly in something as great as these oil developments."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 17th June 1975; c. 420.]
It is quite expensive teaching that we are going in for, as if we had not had a basinful of that sort of thing in the past.
It would be wrong for me to concentrate too much on Ministers. This unfortunate Standing Committee has had other difficulties. It suffered from a lack of Official Reports of its own proceedings. It had the wrong room, at least to start with, and it suffered various other disadvantages. It is only right to say that the Clerks concerned did their utmost to remedy the deficiencies.
This Government are making a pernicious habit of overloading Parliament. Whether they do it purely out of optimism, just hoping that they will get it all through, or because they wish to inflict lasting damage upon Parliament I do not know, and I refrain from making a judgment at this stage. But 185 Members of Parliament are now serving on Standing Committees. At this point in the Session there are nine Bills still before Standing Committee, and two are waiting for their Committee stages.
What we all cry for is less legislation. In our view, the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill is wholly unwanted, save by Marxists or romantics who can still believe in the efficacy of public ownership and State control. Into which category the right hon. Gentleman falls—Marxist or romantic, or a bit of both—I do not know. But at no point have the financial implications of his Bill been clearly explained. All that is clear is that there may well be upwards of £2,000 million of public money involved, and this money will be applied not to reducing the huge borrowing requirement which is exercising the mind of at least part of the Government today but to buy out oil companies which will undoubtedly go and invest that money elsewhere in the world.
I believe that the Government's policy in this Bill is wholly irreconcilable—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is a frequent interrupter and every time he opens his mouth he reveals more of his character. As I was saying, in our view, the Bill is wholly irreconcilable with the grave statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week, and we cannot understand how any responsible Government could think of pressing on with such half-baked proposals now.
It is worth mentioning in passing that their plans seem to be very much half finished. They have not been able to secure either a chairman or a chief executive for the British National Oil Corporation. The word is noised abroad that £80,000 is the salary offered, a figure which has not been denied by the Government. Perhaps the hon. Member for Bolsover should be considered for it. At least that would relieve us of his presence. Alternatively, if not the hon. Member for Bolsover, perhaps one could go to Sir Don Ryder—or Lord Ryder, whatever he calls himself—who has at least shown a willingness to oblige the Government when asked.
I end on this note. The Government have contributed to this affair the ingredients of dogma, uncertainty and incompetence, and they have once again proved that, when the crunch comes, Socialism overshadows the national interest on every occasion. I have no doubt that my right hon. and hon. Friends will wish to vote


against the motion with all their hearts tonight.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. Neil Kinnock: All Opposition Front Benches are heavily dependent on patronage, and all courts need a jester. I must say that the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) does his appointed task rather better than do most of his colleagues on the Front Bench, and I suppose that due credit must be given to him for that.
I shall crave your indulgence, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and that of the House this evening because I wish to direct certain specific observations to the guillotining of this Bill, and in the circumstances I shall wish to pay more attention to my notes than is my custom in the interests of both brevity and accuracy, which are not always forthcoming in speeches off the cuff.
I shall vote tonight for the guillotine on this Bill in much the same spirit as the more enlightened revolutionaries voted for the use of the same instrument in 1789—a spirit of reluctant acquiescence that recognises the practical necessity of assisting the forces of progress to get on with their job with due dispatch.
Our debates on guillotine motions usually arise as a consequence of parliamentary mischief, either by a contemptuous Government, as was frequently the case between 1970 and 1974, or by a verbose Opposition. But the villain of tonight's piece is not the people involved but the system which we persist in trying to operate.
The Government did not introduce the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill at a late stage in the parliamentary year for any malevolent reason, and the Opposition have not shown undue prolixity or bloody-mindedness in their consideration of the Bill. We may well say that frequently they have talked nonsense, but they have been good enough to talk nonsense with reasonable and commendable brevity. No—the reason for this guillotine motion is the system itself.
The Bill is exceedingly complex. It called for particular delicacy of drafting. It has been produced by a Department which, by the very nature of our times,

has frequently had other and urgent preoccupations during the past 16 months, and it is of elementary essence to the Labour Party's programme, to the Labour Party manifesto, and to the prosperity of our economy. These are the reasons for the Bill being produced late in the legislative year and they are precisely the same reasons for the Opposition's attitude to the guillotine.
This Bill must be considered with urgency because it is of direct importance to the way in which we conduct our political and economic affairs and it is an inordinantly important Bill. The Government want the Bill and have to use every available parliamentary procedure to get it. The Opposition quite rightly carry out their constitutional duty of wanting to put the Bill through the finest possible legislative strainer or to bring it grinding to a halt.
The system we continue to operate does not allow Governments or Oppositions to do their job properly. The incompatibility of policy we see in our conflicts in this Chamber and in committees is a demonstration of honest politics. It is about fundamental differences of opinion on the way we should approach North Sea oil and public ownership. We can manage honest politics in argument and debate and in a political and parliamentary fashion, but we cannot introduce a Bill which is both urgent and important because of the existing system. We have to accept that urgency and importance of legislation are incompatible except in dramatic emergencies, when the House responds well.
For weeks past, our Committee has been sitting for 14 hours a week. Other committees have been sitting for an even longer period and for many more hours. This means that hon. Members are kept from other parliamentary obligations such as meeting constituents and dealing with their problems ranging from employment to widows' pensions and invalid vehicles to prison parole briefing themselves and conducting the minimum research for taking part in Select Committees, on which many hon. Members also sit, or participating properly in debates in the Chamber. Activities such as speaking to party meetings in the country, writing articles or attending our own back bench interest groups are unknown luxuries while we are locked in the convent of a


Standing Committee. The so-called scrutiny stage restricts the other parts of an hon. Member's parliamentary life.
The frustration and immobilisation of hon. Members in Standing Committee could be accepted as part of the job if one felt at the end of a Committee that long deliberations had produced something which justified the length and depth of consideration. Of all the sensations I feel on a Standing Committee, in Opposition or in Government. a sense of achievement is not one.
We have heard the Government's case on the Committee put forward by Ministers and my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) has been the soul of patience. The Opposition's case has also been put with due insistence. But essentially it has been a repetitive rehearsal of elementary differences of opinion spiced with a few detailed explanations of specific matters. This is not the fault of the Chairman, the Opposition or the Government. It is the fault of the system. We should now be changing that system so that we do not have to go through the same charade whenever an important and urgent Bill comes before the House. I want the Bill to be enacted and even improved and I want to retain the direct principle of public ownership of North Sea oil.
The issue we are debating tonight is whether we are doing our job of presenting alternative arguments and conflicts in a way that can be comprehended by ourselves and the people we represent and in a way that will ensure good government in this country. We have been treading water in our Committee over the past weeks. Our system of scrutiny and the way our business is conducted is evidence that the system is in great danger of breaking down. I would welcome that because I have never been a great respecter of the conventions and traditions of this House simply because they are conventions and traditions. Once they become outdated—and for some of them that was a long time ago—they should be discarded and replaced by something more relevant.
The weight of legislation and the inadequacy of facilities is crushing Parliament and all the pejorative descriptions of this place as a talking shop housed in a sausage machine are gaining justification.
Some hon. Members say that this is not new, that it has been happening for decades or generations. That may be the case, but Members of Parliament of all ages are now insisting that, whatever has happened before, however acceptable it has been, it has to stop in our time. The insane hours we work must stop. The ludicrously inadequate facilities with which we work have to stop. The self-delusion that good legislation can be produced from a ramshackle machine has to stop. Many vested interests in the political establishment and the establishment generally would like to see us go on gathering cobwebs and earning the incomprehension and contempt of people outside. If we have no democratic force coming from this place, a change is desperately needed.
We require a major reorganisation of the procedures of legislation and immense changes in the conditions of work for Members of Parliament. Among the changes in legislative procedures, there needs to be a timetable for the introduction of major policy Bills or the abolition of the requirement that Bills cannot outlive parliamentary Sessions. We need to change Committee stages almost out of recognition by formalising the inquiry and informatory features under a new procedure which resembles a Select Committee, while retaining the opportunity for argument of principles.
Much of that idea is old hat. It has been rehearsed repeatedly. There has been the odd experiment. However, none of it, whether we adopt that system or leave things much as they are, can be separated from the need to give backbench Members the means to operate an improved system. Without the facility of someone to continue with the ordinary work—what might be called the mundane work—of Members of Parliament while they sit on Committee, and without the facility of researched advice for use in Committee, even a change in procedures would be a mere change of form and would do nothing to change the substance. We should still be in the position where the bland—Ministers, civil servants or experts drafted in from outside—would be scrutinised, examined and questioned by the blind or, at the very least, the partially blind, by which I mean the Members of Parliament.
The situation now is one in which very few of our constituents have any idea what a Committee sitting means. My understanding of it before I came to this House was of the vaguest. All I knew was what I had managed to cull in a civics lesson in the fifth and sixth forms. And if I as a political activist did not understand it, I am sure that only a tiny proportion of my constituents do. Small wonder that they complain when the call goes out for Members of Parliament to have more pay or additional allowances. If they do not understand what we are doing, how can we justify the difference in the way in which we are paid for the job.
We have the situation in which the various interested groups brief the Opposition, the Minister answers the Opposition case, a debate is conducted in time-consuming parliamentary style and concluded with a parliamentary vote. Win, lose or draw, the very same advisers, Opposition and Government, the very next day continue their business of discussion and argument, of concession, of give and take, win and lose, as though the previous parliamentary consideration had never even taken place.
We now have the situation in which the only means of expediting contentious and important legislation is to use the guillotine to bring a peremptory end to our parliamentary meanderings. It is not good for government and it is not good for legislation, and it would be stupid and short-sighted to think that it can inspire trust or understanding among the people we represent or bring anything but disillusionment and furious frustration to Members of Parliament.

Mr. Peter Rost: I agree with much of what the hon. Member says. Does he not agree that Government backbenchers also have a part to play in the scrutiny procedure? If so, why in our present procedure on this Bill have the Government backbenchers stayed silent throughout?

Mr. Kinnock: If after four years in Parliament the hon. Member does not understand that, he does not understand anything. I am not being contentious. I fought two elections last year and part of what I fought on was the introduction of a major State interest and involvement in all spheres of North Sea oil. Indeed,

I want to go a great deal further even than the Government. I know that my participation in Committee at any length would inhibit the possibility of the principles in which I believe becoming law. As a result I have accepted, as do most Government backbenchers, which ever Government is in power, that in exchange for my relative muteness I expect to have relative dispatch, but that does not mean that I agree with the system.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I have listened with interest to what my hon. Friend said in what I hope is not a brief handed out to him by the Leader of the House. I do not wish to infer that I worry about serving on Committees because of the pay. I am quite happy to serve on even more Committees at the same rate of pay, as my hon. Friend doubtless is, too. Will he consider the different ways and means by which the Committee structure can be improved? It is not enough to say, as he does, that the system should be changed and that these abstract notions should be ventilated and looked at. Does he not accept that when controversial measures are introduced the best way to get them through and scrutinised is to introduce a timetable motion at the beginning? Let us have three or four months allotted. [HON. MEMBERS: "That is what he was saying."] As a result of that both sides could partake in the debate and the Bill would be better as a result.

Mr. Kinnock: I think that I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I do not recall my precise immortal phrase, but I think I said very briefly a short time ago that we could give ourselves the alternative of either allowing Bills to outlive Parliaments, or, right at the outset of a major contentious Bill, specify how long it should be considered by the House. That appears to confirm the idea of a timetable which my hon. Friend has put forward—

Mr. Skinner: Without extra pay.

Mr. Kinnock: Pay in that respect is irrelevant. My main contention about pay and facilities is that if I am to put either a fine needle or a pile driver into those who get about the business of ruling the country over our almost dead body, I require a great deal more support and facilities than I have at present.
I go so far as to say—and I hope that my wife does not read Hansard tomorrow—that I would be prepared even to accept the present situation of our pay if someone could give me a guarantee that next week, the week after and the month after that I would not have to put up with the continuing frustration and embarrassment of knowing that I cannot do my job properly because of the distractions of the way in which we now try to work. The pressure which is building about Members' salaries and conditions will make a contribution to the changes in legislative procedure which both my hon. Friend and I would like to see.
There will always be a method of curtailing consideration of legislation, and no one can object seriously to that. The argument is not about the principle of curtailment but about the inadequacies of Parliament which make such a curtailment a miserable and inevitable necessity. Last week, departing from my usual temperate deportment, I called in the Committee for a parliamentary revolution. A Conservative Member of the Committee was kind enough later to explain that I had no hope of gaining Tory support for such a movement but that I should seek to attain the same end by pleading for change in the name of tradition, and that is what I shall do.
The tradition of this House is that the vote of an hon. Member should follow his voice. The reality of this House at the moment for Government backbenchers is that even with the benevolent Whip that we have on this Committee, a most understanding Whip—and I am not looking for a pair—what is required from backbenchers on the Government side is their vote and certainly not their voice. The tradition is that all hon. Members have the right and duty to represent constituency, parliamentary and party interests, but the present system prohibits the exercise of such duties by anyone sitting on a Committee on a major Bill. The tradition of this House is that tradition is acceptable only for as long as it is useful, and the tradition of Standing Committees is now contrary to everything that makes Parliament worthwhile.
Mr. Speaker, fellow revolutionaries and traditionalists, it is time for a major

change. It is time for a guillotine on our present parliamentary procedures, and, as inadequate as my knitting is, I am quite prepared to play the Madame Defarge of that particular change.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: I congratulate the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) on a most enjoyable speech. I understand that one member of his family is celebrating his birthday today.
I share some of the discontent expressed by the hon. Gentleman, but I do not agree about its cause or cure. The fundamental business of Parliament is to represent the grievances of our constituents, harry the Government, get them to explain what they are doing and attempt to get them to mend their ways. I do not deny that we might be better equipped than we are to do that job, but however much we change the machinery we shall not get over bad management of the business of the House of Commons and too much legislation. Candidly, our difficulty tonight is due to bad management of the business of the House of Commons.
I think that if we were to ask our constituents what at the moment, apart from inflation and unemployment, is the most general complaint against the Government, we should discover that it is the absolute flood of legislation and all that goes with it, the enormous increase in the Civil Service, and so on, which is resented throughout the country.
The hon. Member for Bedwellty attempted to deal with the reasons why the Bill was introduced so late in the Session. He said that it was a matter of drafting, that it required delicate drafting. All I can say is that if that is what it required it did not get it.
The hon. Gentleman then said that this was part of the Labour Party manifesto. This is the great modern excuse for everything that the Government do. They say it is part of their manifesto. If we put more and more into our manifestos and claim that all that is in them must be got through in one Session of Parliament, no change in the machinery will deal with that situation. If something in a manifesto is so important, the measure should be introduced into the House early in the Session.
The hon. Gentleman then claimed that it was important to him and others that the oil industry should be in public ownership. But there was public ownership. The Gas Corporation and the National Coal Board had their share and, as I constantly say, there was a 49 per cent. holding in BP.
The fundamental reason why we are debating this motion tonight is the gross mismanagement of Government business. They introduced not only this Bill but many others far too late in the Session. I thought that the Secretary of State adopted rather a detached attitude about this. He spoke as though it was nothing to do with him, but he is the representative here of the Government, and he advanced no reason why we should be flooded with Bills in July. What is more, there are two other measures still to go into Committee.
This is not an urgent Bill. It is possible to argue that there should have been more legislation concerned with oil two or three years ago. I would accept that, but at the moment there is no overriding urgency about the Bill. It will not assist unemployment. It will not stop inflation. But it will increase the borrowing requirement, and it will increase the number of officials, and everybody is agreed that those are two things that we cannot afford.
I come then to the question of the general argument for a timetable at the beginning of legislation. Like others, I think there is a case for this. There are objections, but I think one can make a case for this procedure.
I asked the Leader of the House, and I asked in Committee, what the Government's proposals are about the Session. There is nothing God-given that the Session has to end at the end of July. There is nothing God-given that the Session cannot be continued in the autumn. I have received no answer to my question. There was no attempt to introduce a timetable at the beginning of the Bill, even of the vaguest sort. Whatever reason there may be for having a timetable at the start, the worst of all worlds is to wait until the Bill gets half-way through and then introduce one.
The only justification for taking such action is obstruction by the Opposition,

but no one has suggested that the Opposition have obstructed the Bill. The only filibuster—and I agree it was a small one—was carried on by Members of the Labour Party because they did not have enough people present in the Committee to have a vote. Otherwise no one has suggested that we have unduly delayed the business of the Committee. The failure of the Government to get the Bill through its Second Reading into Committee in good time is no reason for introducing a guillotine half-way through the consideration of the Bill.
Let us look at what happens to Parliament when a guillotine is introduced at this stage of the Bill. To begin with, it distorts discussion. It wholly changes the nature of our discussion once the guillotine is brought down. Since the Bill entered Committee about 100 Government amendments have been put down It is true that many amendments are consequential. But many of these are, of course, of considerable importance. Many refer to later clauses and schedules. I do not take the view that the first clause is the only important clause in the Bill.
We are now told that we must finish the Bill by 15th July, including all those amendments put down by the Government themselves, who presumably want discussion of them. One must remember the situation of back benchers, A grave disadvantage of a guillotine motion is that back benchers are not represented on the Business Committee. I agree that they all cannot be, but back benchers represent their constituency points of view and often they have points to put in Committee which otherwise would not be brought to the notice of the Government. Therefore, the whole procedure at this stage is liable to be unfair to back benchers and to distort debate.
There is then the position of Government back benchers. I do not know what will happen, but I hope that there will be time for back benchers to take part in the debate. The hon. Member for Bedwellty need no longer fear that he may be depriving himself of his heart's desire if he says more than a few words. Government back benchers should be able to give us the benefit of their experience.
I believe that there is value in the democratic element, the non-expert


element, which comes to this place and says, "I am not completely informed about this, but this is where the shoe pinches, as I know from my constituents. This is what they would like to say about the Bill". Even though the amendments may not be accurately drafted, this is an essential part of the democratic process.
How long should we spend on a Bill? The Secretary of State mentioned that we had spent 19 hours on one clause. What is the correct time for an important Bill? I do not think that we spend too long on them. I would go some way with those who say that the results may not always measure up to the energy displayed, but I do not agree that one is left totally frustrated. In many ways the public derive more benefit from what is said in Committee than from general debates in this Chamber. Sometimes in Committee valuable progress is made, and I would find difficulty in saying that 19 hours is too long to discuss a matter of maximum importance.
I very much regret that we have not had more contributions from people who know intimately how the nationalised industries work and about such proposals as having civil servants on the board of a company. I do not think that we have spent anything like too long on that. This is an important and a disastrous initiative by the Government, and it should be considered in great detail.

Mr. Joseph Dean: I think the right hon. Gentleman is being a little unfair in saying that there was not sufficient time to debate the appointment of civil servants to the BNOC board. There was a long and full debate on that matter, and I think that most Opposition Members took part in it.

Mr. Grimond: I agree. The point I was making is, was it too long? Have we spoken for too long? I do not think we have. I quite agree that there were Second Reading speeches made but that is part of the democratic process. I do not believe that on the whole we have spent too long in discussing important changes in legislation. It has to be remembered that one fault of our system is that we seldom look back on legislation to see whether it was right or wrong. It takes some time to alter legislation. Most people would agree that we have made

grave errors, particularly in legislation which affects nationalisation. It may have been the fault of those on the Committees. No one can say that we have so certainly got nationalisation legislation right that nationalisation measures can now sweep through the House in four or five hours.
Let us look at what the country expects of us. First, it is that we should reduce the amount of legislation. I cannot overemphasise that. The amount of fresh legislation is breaking the backs of business, industry and the ordinary people. Second, legislation should be considered at a reasonable time of day. Thirdly, no doubt, more advice should be available to back benchers. It must be considered in an orderly fashion. It would have been possible for the Government to come forward at the start and said, "We want this Bill by a certain time. Can we agree upon a general programme for it?" They did not do that. They never did.
We therefore have the position when the public will see that the earlier part of the Bill has been looked into but will possibly feel that the latter parts were not sufficiently considered. Whatever case there may be for a timetable from the start this is the worst of both worlds. This is the way in which Parliament should not conduct its business. I do not believe that all will be put right by changing our procedures. I am as keen as anyone to change certain of our procedures but it would be possible to put this situation right by a few simple actions on the part of the Government. If they wanted a timetable they should have said so much earlier. Further, they should introduce their legislation earlier in the Session.
In Committee the Government must make sure that they can answer legitimate questions put by members of the Committee. Without any disrespect to the Ministers, it cannot be said that at the beginning of our proceedings we were given vital information, on the financial aspect alone, which was so necessary to enable us to do our job. not only for ourselves but for the public generally.

8.14 p.m.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher: I listened with great interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) and his argument for changes in the system—points which were taken up to some extent by the right


hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond). This timetable motion is needed to push Government business, to meet the Government's timetable. The Secretary of State has told us that this legislation is of particular importance to the Government, repeating, as he and his colleagues have done with great consistency, that this is an important part of the Labour Party's manifesto and therefore its commitment to the country.
It is not unusual for Ministers to push Government business through the House and to take the attitude that their priorities must be met. It can hardly be in the best interests of Parliament and the people that Government business should be pushed through and parliamentary scrutiny cut short. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give some consideration to the effect that this move has on Parliament and parliamentary scrutiny. Someone should be arguing the case to show how this affects the business of Parliament, which is equally important. Parliament is being asked to set up a new nationalised industry. With the experience of existing nationalised industries behind us this should be a thought-provoking exercise for all hon. Members.
In Committee we tried to encourage, indeed induce, Labour Members to discuss with us the running of a nationalised industry, how nationalised industries might be improved and how we might learn from experience. There has not been a word from the Labour Party. There have been no new ideas, except the attempt to centralise even further the grip of Government and Ministers on the day-to-day running of nationalised industries, including the placing, for the first time ever, of civil servants on the boards of companies. In Committee Ministers have pressed their case for the BNOC as if the National Coal Board and British Railways were shining examples of good customer service, high productivity, good industrial relations, innovation and energy.
The right hon. Gentleman has pressed his case as if he had a creditable track record of successful Government intervention in industry. This is far from the case. The Scottish Daily Express said on Saturday in its main leading article:
It is time the public was given an account of what is actually happening at the three

Benn flops—the motor-cycle plant at Meriden, the engineering factory at Kirkby, and the Scottish Daily News in Glasgow.

Mr. Benn: I did not read the article to which the hon. Gentleman has referred but it will be interesting to know whether the Daily Express drew attention to the fact that the co-operative in Glasgow came into being because it decided to pull out from publishing the Scottish Daily Express there with practically no notice to the workers concerned.

Mr. Fletcher: That may be so. The proof of that pudding will be in the eventual success or otherwise of the Scottish Daily News. It is not for me to deifend the actions or attitude of the Daily Express in this connection. I have to ask the Minister whether he now feels as satisfied with the public investment he has made as he did when he made it. Since he has intervened earlier perhaps he will consider that point worthy of a reply later.
This debate requires us to look beyond the failings of any Secretary of State and any Government to the failings of Parliament itself. It cannot be Parliament's job meekly to implement the manifesto whichever party is in power. I do not think that is why any hon. Member decided that his career lay in this House. It is our job not to legislate for the reign of a particular Government, as has become the practice, but to place on the statute book legislation which has stood the test of political compromise within the House and which may as a consequence last for decades or even generations.
Incredible as it may seem to some hon. Members, simply implementing the party manifesto is not what the country expects of Parliament or of us. This House is not just an extension of the party conference. It is not for us to adhere, right or wrong, to our manifesto commitments, particularly those which show that there has been no attempt to learn from contemporary experience. There can be little satisfaction to hon. Members in enacting legislation today which the House may reverse after the next election. I hope that from a parliamentary point of view, if the guillotine is falling tonight, it will fall on this "Grand old Duke of York" act which takes us up the hill in this Parliament and down again in the next.


This is not the way to improve Britain's economic performance. Nor is it likely to improve our industrial reputation either at home or abroad. Above all, motions such as this damage Parliament immensely. For that reason I oppose it.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. William Small: I believe that the motion is necessary. For far too long the nation has lived on parliamentary etiquette and Erskine May. The Bill is about industry and the new technologies in oil, and we should proceed as fast as we can. The argument is about the possession of oil. It is not about the law, which is incidental. The collapse of the Tory Party in Scotland—and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher) should recognise this more than anyone else—is due to the attitude of the Scottish National Party that North Sea oil is Scotland's oil. Whether the SNP wants total public ownership is a different question. We are dealing with a sleeping warrior who has awakened.

Mr. Alexander Fletcher: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman realises that the wakening sleeping warrior is the Scottish Tory Party.

Mr. Small: I shall not debate that question. If I were to do so it would take me outwith the rules of order. However, I hope that the Scottish Conservatives will make a braver show than they made in the last election.
The problem about the Bill is that it is a hybrid Bill, and all hybrid Bills are complicated.
There has been much talk about who the chairman of the British National Oil Corporation is to be. Whoever gets the job should be granted parliamentary confidence because the appointment will be made via Parliament. When the chairman is appointed, he will be entitled to the respect due to anyone who serves the nation. I do not like to hear hon. Members opposite doing a knocking job on the chairmen of nationalised industries who are doing their best to satisfy the nation's needs. I detest the provocative technique of hon. Members opposite. To talk about it not being possible to buy a chairman for £80,000 a year is nonsense. When the chairman is appointed, his value to the nation will

be such that he must be respected by the people whom he serves.
Another argument that we have had on the Bill has related to the headquarters of the BNOC. They have to be where? Do I hear any voices?

Mr. Iain Sproat: Aberdeen.

Mr. Small: In fact, they are to be in Glasgow. As a Glasgow Member, I welcome that. It is another reason why I am in a bigger hurry than other hon. Members who have spoken to get the Bill on the statute book.
During the Han dynasty, 2,000 years before Christ, there were arguments about salt. It was said that the only thing which would sustain the people of China was salt, so it became a monopoly. I hope that the oil which has been discovered around our coasts will become a national monopoly and that the Government will take the lot over in time.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. Hamish Gray: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) is not present because he said much with which I am sure hon. Members on both sides agreed. There is no doubt that some of his remarks were relevant to the workings of Parliament. Much of what he said has a direct bearing on the few Members in the Chamber at present.
There is no doubt that the House of Commons has lost its relevance. Until we look seriously at our procedures, that situation will continue. I believe in timetable motions. I believe that every Bill should be timetabled at the outset. We have committees of selection which are advised, through the usual channels, about the Members from each side of the House who wish to serve on committees. We leave it to them to decide who shall serve. I see no reason why we should not have a similar committee, composed of experienced parliamentarians and advised by experienced Clerks of the House, which, after studying a Bill and referring to precedents for similar legislation, would decide the appropriate number of sittings on a Bill.
If that were to happen, a Bill would be dealt with in a straightforward manner. The important parts of it would be given


ample discussion, whereas at present many important clauses in Bills are not discussed at all because the Government introduce a guillotine motion, as they are perfectly entitled to do, because we all know that the Government will get their business. If they believe it necessary to resort to introducing a guillotine motion, they have the right to do so, and they will do so. For that reason, it would be much better for the House, for the name of Parliament and, in the long run, for the quality of legislation if each Bill were subject to a timetable motion from the outset.
However, we must play the game by the rules laid down. At present Bills are not subject to early timetable motions and therefore the question whether the Government will negotiate with the Opposition and introduce a voluntary timetable or impose their will on the House and guillotine a Bill is virtually in the hands of the Government.
We know the history of the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill. It was promised as long ago as November 1974 by the then Secretary of State for Energy, who said that it would be published within a matter of days. In fact, it was not published until 9th April 1975. It received a Second Reading on 30th April and proceeded to Committee, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) said, in a leisurely fashion. There was no degree of urgency on the part of the Government about getting the Bill through.
On 1st July, the present Secretary of State for Energy adjourned the Committee at midnight. I was surprised that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) should have complained about delays in Committee because the Committee had to be adjourned at midnight on 1st July because of the antics of his hon. Friends in the House. After a short discussion with the Under-Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman returned and announced, so willingly, that it would be reasonable to adjourn the Committee. He must have known that there would be a guillotine motion. After he saw the Chief Whip he must have known that it was only a matter of time before the guillotine would be inflicted on us.
After what I heard about his performance in Committee I was staggered at his affable approach to the situation. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I said to my hon. Friends "We have misjudged the Secretary of State—he is much more reasonable than I assumed". Little did I know that by that time he had, tucked away in his pocket, the assurance of the guillotine motion.
The Industry Bill was guillotined after 40 sittings. The Committee reached Clause 21 of a Bill containing 28 clauses after 28 sittings. We should compare that with the excellent progress which this Committee achieved. At this stage there had been only 19 sittings. The Opposition made constructive contributions throughout. The only filibuster speeches were those made by Government supporters when Government backbenchers were reluctant to attend. This was before the Secretary of State joined in. Those Government supporters were so reluctant to uphold Government legislation and to have it passed by the House that they did not even come to the Committee. The Government started a filibuster to keep the Committee going and to avoid a vote until the Whips could rope in Government supporters.
That is why I believe that it is wrong for the Government to guillotine the Bill. The Government are at fault. They have dilly-dallied and delayed presenting the Bill, and in giving it a Second Reading and bringing it to Committee. The Government have failed to achieve any urgency.
That is not a failure of the Opposition. We have fulfilled our part in improving this legislation, yet the Government are now desperately attempting to force through Parliament a succession of highly controversial nationalisation Bills by one means or another. That is the reason for urgency. It is not that the Bill is desperately needed. The BNOC is not likely to get off the ground for a considerable time. The Government are unable to find a chairman and the other people needed to operate the BNOC. That is why it is wrong that the Bill should be subjected to a guillotine.
In Committee I noted the apprehensions of certain Government supporters The hon. Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) expressed extreme doubt about the


way in which nationalised industries were moving and the controls needed within them. There was no question of filibustering. He expressed genuine fears. I hope that those fears were passed on by the Under-Secretary.
The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) expressed great fears and vigorously opposed the suggestion that the Committee should sit in the afternoons as well as in the mornings. I wonder what the hon. Gentleman will do tonight. Will he come into the Lobby with the Opposition and oppose this measure? The Secretary of State smiled sweetly at the hon. Gentleman when he entered the Chamber. He was probably trying to persuade him that he must not be led astray by the Opposition. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have the courage of his convictions. He made a brave speech in Committee, for which we all admired him. I hope that he will follow that by opposing this motion.
The Bill will not make a rapid contribution towards overcoming the inflation with which the country is now faced. It will merely involve the country in additional huge borrowing, nationalisation and vast expenditure of public funds. We believe that there is no hurry for the Bill. That is why we shall vote against the guillotine motion.

8.34 p.m.

Mr. Joseph Dean: I agree that our business should be carried out in the most expedient way. I was heavily involved in local government at a high level. It took not too long to make policy decisions. That seems to apply to parliamentary procedures. When a political party has won a General Election on the basis of a manifesto, the sooner it can put the priciples contained in the manifesto into operation the better. We have heard too much about political parties having little regard for the manifestos on the basis of which they have won General Elections. One of the excuses used in the past was that the parliamentary timetable could not accommodate the legislation that was promised in the manifesto.
There have been contradictions running through the debate. Hon. Members have spoken about expediting the business and in the next breath have objected to the timetable motion. The debate is about the

timetable motion, but many right hon. and hon. Members have used it as an excuse to debate parts of the Bill that have already been dealt with. The right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) touched on important parts of the Bill that have already been dealt with in Committee. With some of them he was off the beam.
The Secretary of State made the issue clear in opening the debate, and it was made clear in the Second Reading debate and in Committee, that we wanted the Bill. It is one of the main pillars of our policy. It is no secret that the Labour Party wanted the Government to take a major stake in the North Sea oil.
Slurs have been cast on the sincerity of the £80,000-a-year chairman. Hon. Members have asked what he would do. Are Opposition Members convinced that the chairmen of the massive multinational companies act on the basis of what is best for the British people? I am sure they do not. One has only to look at decisions which were taken not so long ago in the private sector to see that.
The Bill was given a high priority. It may have been delayed, but there is ample time to get it through. Hon. Members have said that there has been no time wasting, but that depends upon the criteria one uses. There have been many time-wasting procedures in Committee. For example, there was the repetitiveness of Opposition Members when the Bill was first introduced in Committee. Almost every Opposition Member repeated what had been said by his hon. Friends. The language might have been different but the effect was the same.
I probably wasted a day's sitting when I intervened to ask the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) whether he was aware that, although the population of Scotland is 13 per cent. of that of the United Kingdom, Scotland attracted 33 per cent. of all development grants. It was like throwing a ball to a kennelful of greyhounds. Almost every Opposition Member referred to it.
Last Thursday in Committee there was a debate on the location of the headquarters of the BNOC. I thought that parish pump politics operated only at parish pump level, but parish pump politics were certainly brought into that debate. The hon. Member for Hamilton


(Mr. Wilson) defended Scottish interests because Glasgow is a chosen area and Hamilton is in that conurbation. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) made a claim for Aberdeen. Not to be outdone, the hon. Member for Dundee, East made a claim for Dundee, East. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) was tempted, but he did not go quite that far.
The debate on the location of the headquarters in Scotland and the debate that I triggered off developed into what was almost a debate not on BNOC but on devolution. I utter a word of warning to the hon. Member for Dundee, East. Hon. Members representing various areas of Scotland wanted the location of the headquarters to be not Glasgow but their constituency. At successive General Elections the Scottish National Party has preached the togetherness of the Scottish cause, but that debate demonstrated the divisiveness of this proposal. It exposed the division in Scottish politics.
After the main strategy of Government decisions, the overwhelming loyalty in politics is to the area for which one has been elected. Representing a Leeds constituency, I have to do my best for Leeds. It is assumed that if a Scottish Assembly were given power to decide these things, decisions would be made in the best interests of small areas of Scotland, but that assumption is nonsense. What would happen has been demonstrated by that debate in Committee. Regardless of the system, the overwhelming majority of electors in Scotland would come from the Glasgow belt in the west, and they would have very little regard to the problems of other areas of Scotland. That is what politics is all about. In the main, representatives will subscribe to national decisions, but when they can get something copper bottomed for their areas, that is what they will do.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: I am delighted that once again the hon. Members has fallen into the trap of speaking about devolution. Would he not agree that what he has described happens world wide? What he suggests might happen in Scotland might happen elsewhere and the assumptions that he has made about Scotland could be made about the United Kingdom.

Mr. Dean: I agree, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that the decisions that would be made by any Scottish Assembly might not be to his satisfaction. He might be getting a fairer crack of the whip for his area now by having decisions made here rather than in Scotland.
In Committee and again today there have been references to the weaknesses of nationalised industries. It would be foolish to pretend that those weaknesses do not exist. However, after long experience in local government and now in this upper level, as it is supposed to be, I take exception to suggestions of corruption and to veiled hints of corruption. People in public life, whether elected or officers, get a bad image because of the way the media exploit the situation.
It is to be regretted that hon. Members sometimes use loose terms about groups of people. If I worked in a nationalised industry and there were references to corruption—it might mean a girl collecting money or dealing with the payments of bills—I would resent the suggestion that I was part of a corrupt organisation. The more we leave that type of language out of our debating chambers the better our image will be served. That approach has been badly overplayed in the past.
This is the first major Committee on which I have sat, and it has highlighted the different ideologies between the two sides of the House. I respect the Opposition for their views. I expect them to act in a particular way and to speak for a particular faction. I make no apology for believing in public control in the public interest where it is an essential commodity—namely, a commodity that is essential to the nation's survival. That typifies what the Bill is all about.
We are dealing with the exploitation of the new-found wealth in the North Sea. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) obliquely referred to the fact that there is no need for the Bill. It is true that we already have holdings in the North Sea by virtue of the National Coal Board and the gas board. That may be regarded as rather a hollow joke in that the boards' holdings in the North Sea are minuscule in comparison with what will happen as regards the development of North Sea oil. That must be so when we compare those holdings with the new and


massive undertakings that are going ahead.
It is our case that we need to have the holdings completely under our control. To be frank, we do not trust the multinational oil companies, to which some Conservatives pay lip service, to have control.
This has been an interesting exchange of views on a timetable motion. I hope that some system may be found that will allow decisions to be reached within a matter of weeks. It is surely one of the most frustrating things for people to read in the Press or to hear from the broadcasting services that the Government have made certain decisions and to expect instant politics when Parliament works in the opposite way. Instant politics will never be achieved by Parliament. However, I hope that in the near future we can arrive at a system of debating major Bills that will allow them to pass through their different stages, receive the necessary Assent and become law as quickly as possible.

8.48 p.m.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Reference has been made to the time-wasting processes of Parliament. In a sense, it could be said that this debate is one of the rituals in that process. In looking around, I see that most of the Members who are present are those who normally serve in Committee on the Bill. We might be serving a better purpose if we were in Committee discussing the details of the Bill rather than a guillotine motion. However, many Members have had their say, so why should I deny myself the same opportunity?
This debate is taking place principally because the Government want the Bill to pass through Committee. It has been suggested that the Government could extend the Session into October or November. It is said that if they did so there would be no difficulty because progress is undoubtedly being made in Committee. However, we must remember that the Bill had a slow start on Clauses 1 and 2.
On these occasions when the Government seek to get a Bill through in time, the Opposition tend to indulge in chest beating just to show how virile we are. We create a tremendous amount of noise;

we vote against the motion and then we get back to business in whatever time remains to the Committee. It might have been simpler if we had taken the vote at the beginning of the debate for all the difference it is likely to make in the end. Both sides of the House obviously look on these matters from different points of view. If there were to be a change of Government, the arguments would be put the other way but the vote would still take place.
Why do the Government want to push through the Bill, apart from reasons of face saving? The first relates to the participation and the benefits which might flow from it. We know that in regard to existing licences the Government are committed to a "No gain, no loss" strategy. If there is to be no gain to the country it causes some of us to wonder why the Government are engaging in this exercise. That being so, why is it that we are pushing through the legislation with all possible speed. It is not as though there is a tremendous flood of oil gushing out of the N nth Sea. That may well happen when the Forties field comes into production. We are perhaps as much as two months away from that or, at the earliest, six weeks away.
The participation element is being taken care of separately and negotiations are taking place separately between the Government and the oil companies. Therefore, we know that there will be no gain in such a situation, which is hardly any inducement for hurry in any circumstances. If there is to be no immediate gain by participation and by getting the Bill through Parliament in the next three or four months, I do not see that there is a compelling argument to support the Government's motion.
Let us turn to the question of completion. The Government have made a statement on completion with regard to the existing developments. I sympathise with the control they want over the Bill, but a delay of three or four months will do no harm to the completion arrangements. The effect of the new model clauses will be felt several years hence, particularly if the Government adhere to the statement made in December last year by the former Secretary of State for Energy. Therefore, again there is no


hurry from the point of view of completion.
Let me turn to the question of the pipelines themselves. Again I see no cause for difficulty. Certain pipe-lines are under construction. I doubt whether any oil company, faced with the provisions of the present Bill, would go ahead with any pipe-line development at present without considering what the Government attitude was likely to be. The company concerned would wish to discuss the matter with the Government and obtain agreement in advance about pipeline capacity, terms and so on.
I turn to the question of the refineries. We shall be interested to discuss this subject since there is now over-capacity in the refineries. There is certainly no question of rushing ahead with refinery developments. I am sure that Government will want to consider the effects which additional refinery capacity would have on areas such as Grangemouth or the new refinery, if it ever goes ahead, in areas such as Ross-shire. Again I do not see why the Bill should be brought out of Committee for any reasons of urgency.
We return to the question whether there is any need for such a motion. The view is that the Bill, regardless of the content, must be taken through this House and then sent to the Lords as quickly as possible. I regard the Committee process—and I speak from experience of having served on two Committees this Session—as a quality control circuit. If the Bill comes from the Civil Service, it goes into Committee, not to be argued over on principle, but more to deal with the nitty-gritty of content—the phrase by phrase, subsection by subsection approach.
Here we run into the real weakness in the whole system, and that is the volume of legislation which is pouring through. It is the same for all of us. One can cope with things and deal with detail, getting everything nicely tabulated, provided one is running at a reasonable pace. But there is always the problem that if there is a terrific upsurge of work and it floods over, it is necessary to get the major part of the work done regardless of many of the finer points. That is what has been happening this session.
My experience of Parliament does not go back beyond February of last year,

so I cannot comment on the work that was done before, but, as a lawyer, I have looked at some of the statute books and I have been horrified at the way in which they have got thicker and thicker with the passing of the years. This leads me to ask how it is possible to control the quality of the legislation. None of us sets out to become a parliamentary draftsman. Of course, when one moves an amendment one usually prefaces it with the remark that if there is any fault in the drafting the Government can redraft it. That means that with collective minds —and that includes Government as well as Opposition Members of the Committee—points may be found in an amendment which may not have occurred to the civil servants or to the Government. But if the circuit is overloaded, we lose control over quality.
Studying the two Committees on which I have served—the Committee considering the Oil Taxation Bill and the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-Lines Bill —I have found that as the work on a Bill progresses, members of the Committee, having started raw—and this is particularly true of the Oil Taxation Bill which was hideously complicated—begin to pick up knowledge as they go along, but unfortunately by the time they have done so the earlier parts of the Bill on which that knowledge could have been applied have been passed.
It occurred to me that there is in operation a Swedish system which, I imagine, takes almost the same form as a Select Committee, although I have never served on a Select Committee. A committee of the Swedish Parliament considers legislation at a very early stage—almost as a preliminary Bill—before the Government have set it in concrete and one has to chip bits off it much against their will. What is interesting is that the members of that committee go out and take evidence from the various parties who are interested in it. In other words, they are exposed at a very early stage to all the lobbyists.
As we all know, the CBI, the TUC, the interested bodies in Scotland, the oil companies and others are all hammering at the doors of the various ministries. Discussions take place until this nebulous creation which is to take the form of legislation begins to define itself. Would it not be better in a sense if Members of


Parliament were able to listen directly and cross-examine those who have expert evidence to give, how it might affect them, perhaps personally, or how it might affect the jobs of those working in the industry, and then come back and give guidance to Parliament, perhaps in brief written form, about the format of the legislation?
I am throwing this out as a suggestion, following what has proved to be a very enlightening debate and not full of the sound and fury which have occasionally occurred in previous debates on guillotine motions. This perhaps sums up the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-Lines Bill Standing Committee. It has been a very good-humoured Committee, apart from the second and third sittings when certain hon. Members forsook their normal good humour and unjustly attacked a member of the Committee.
Here we are yet again lined up in what could be termed different ranks ready to vote on the motion. What saddens me is that there may well be some good contributions which could be made on many important clauses of the Bill. Looking at it from the Scottish point of view—which I am always keen to support—there are some extremely important amendments coming up on the question of the National Oil Account about whether any of the funds should be side-tracked to Scotland. I should not like the Committee to be unable to discuss that matter, especially as the Conservatives and the Liberals are in favour of direct hypothecation of Scottish oil and revenues and the profits which will be obtained, or some part of them, going to Scotland. I should not like to see that argument lost sight of.
Standing the fact that the Bill has many important clauses which will affect Scotland—some beneficially and some adversely—I should not like to condone any attempt to curtail or guillotine the discussion at this stage, especially as the Government have not produced any reason for bringing the Bill out of Committee. Legislation is coming which is equally important. There is the Divorce (Scotland) Bill which will come from the House of Lords. I should not like to see that dropped out of sight, either. This is the perfect opportunity, given the pressure of legislation, the amount ready to go into Committee and the important Bills to come, to extend the

Session to November or December. There seems to be a growing all-party agreement that that would be the most sensible course for taking care of the situation. Therefore, this guillotine motion is ill-advised and unnecessary.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. Roger Stott: I am grateful to be able to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is not very often that I have had the opportunity of speaking in the House this year, mainly because I have been closeted away on various Committees in the House and have not had the opportunity to speak in this Chamber in which, after all, most of us have spent most of our lives trying to speak.
I had a delightful experience when I listened to the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) who made, if I may say so, a brilliant speech about the shortcomings of the parliamentary system. We should advise our colleagues who were not present during the debate to read my hon. Friend's speech and we should perhaps send a copy to the Lord President of the Council so that he can dwell upon it and possibly recommend it to his Cabinet colleagues in order that the system which we operate in the House may be changed or modified.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty that generally this is a debate in which many back benchers can air their grievances about the way we conduct our business in the House. I shall not go as far as my hon. Friend because I think that some of the traditions that we have in the House are worthy of preservation. Indeed, I shall be sad to see many of them disappear.
However, there is a need for change and I am sure that that change will come because, like everything else, Parliament is changing, especially in its membership. An examination of the age range of Members of Parliament who came into the House in 1970 shows that there is a definite shift to people of my generation who like to see change happen a little more quickly.
I agree with my hon. Friend that Members of the House will not earn any more respect either from the public or from their constituents if they are closeted away in Committees sitting all day, all


night and all day again. I have seen dawn rise over the spires of St. Thomas's on a number of occasions and, if I may use a phrase without being out of line —an Anglo-Saxon phrase—it is a quite knackering experience. It does no good whatsoever. It does not help Parliament or our system. It just makes the Members of Parliament, the Ministers, the officials and everybody else that much more tired and that much more distressed that all they want to do is to crawl home and go to bed. It does nothing for the system and it does not make us any more efficient. We need to organise ourselves to perform our functions as Members of the House and this legislature to carry out our business in a civilised manner.
There have been some 19 sittings of the Committee. I should not be so presumptuous as to suggest that Opposition Members, many of whom I have come to know personally over the past 15 months as I am involved in the Department of Energy, have been filibustering, although from time to time we have been subjected to speeches from the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) which could only be described as Gladstonian in length. The right hon. Gentleman has a habit of assiduously quoting every newspaper that is printed between here and Panama.
The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) seems to want to prove his virility by speaking on every amendment moved from his side of the Committee.
The hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Moore), who is a very good friend of mine, treated us to an erudite discussion on nationalised industries which I thought was superbly delivered. In a different place I would have gladly joined issue with the hon. Gentleman and argued the virtues or non-virtues of nationalised industries.
I think that we could have made more progress on the Bill than we have made. I may have been a junior midwife at the delivery of the Bill, but I believe it to be important, not only because it is a manifesto commitment that is being met. but because it comes at a time when Britain and the Western World are facing a very serious energy crisis. It comes at a time when we need as a national Gov-

ernment to be able to supervise, organise and legislate for our energy resources. It is because of the degree of importance that my hon. Friends and I attach to the Bill that I believe that it is necessary to have a guillotine motion on the Bill so that we can have a living reality of the Bill at the end of this Session.
I hope that we in the House learn our lesson and that, if we cannot have a change in the system, at least the two Front Benches or the back benchers can agree on a voluntary timetable on Bills which go into Standing Committee so that we can work saner hours and serve our constituents in the best possible way.

9.7 p.m.

Mr. Iain Sproat: The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Stott) paid a very generous tribute to his hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock). Many of us on this side would agree with that tribute, for the hon. Member for Bedwellty made a brilliant speech. What he said about the system was well said.
However, it is not because the system is wrong that we are debating this motion. The system is wrong and it was no doubt a useful occasion to go into the demerits of the system. We are discussing this motion because the Government have mishandled the system as it stands.
That is a simple point to prove. On 4th November the right hon. Gentleman then in charge of the Department of Energy said that he would bring the Bill in within a matter of weeks. In fact, not only was it not brought in within a matter of weeks—it was not until 30th April that we had the Second Reading. It was not until 13th May that the Bill went into Committee. No one could say that two months was a reasonable time in which to discuss the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray) rightly said in his very interesting contribution that it should be possible for the usual channels to decide what is a reasonable time for the discussion of a Bill of this complexity and magnitude. Whatever that time is, it is not two months. It was the Government's fault that we had only that short time. It was not the shortcomings of the system that led to our having that brief time.
It is no use the Government bringing the Bill in late and then blaming the Opposition because the Bill is not finished sufficiently early. That is the nub of our criticism. My right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) talked about the indignation that we feel. The Secretary of State talked about occasional ritual indignation. I assure hon. Members opposite that it is not ritual indignation that we feel. Our indignation is not felt at the moment against the contents of the Bill. We have felt and expressed that indignation elsewhere and this is not the place to express it tonight. The indignation which we feel tonight is not against the ideological content of the Bill, and it is not against the principle of guillotining a Bill as such, which we accept. It is against guillotining this Bill in this way. That is what we object to.
We object because the Bill will not have proper scrutiny. It is an extremely complex measure. Already, many of us have felt time's winged chariot hurrying behind us. Only the other day, we did not discuss certain amendments at length in the way which we thought necessary, purely because we then knew that the guillotine was at our backs.
Bills are often improved in Committee. One has only to think of the Oil Taxation Bill, which was dramatically improved in Committee, to see how the Committee stage may work to advantage. There are many parts of this Bill which I and others should like to discuss at length. For example, I am concerned about the relationship of the Bill to the fishing industry, which is almost of as great importance to my constituents as the oil industry is. There is an entirely non-party point here which should be gone into in detail, but I greatly doubt, whatever amendments I may put down, that it will be considered in sufficient detail.
I do not for a moment accept that we have been dilatory in Committee. If we had been, that would, no doubt, be excuse enough for a guillotine. In fact, we have in no sense been dilatory. Remembering that it is upon our resources of North Sea oil that the industrial future of our country will to a great extent depend, remembering the importance that both we on this side and hon. Members opposite attach to the whole concept of nationalisation, and remembering the

important part that the size of the borrowing requirement which the Bill will entail must play in our present consideration of the economic crisis—remembering those three important factors, just three which I have chosen at random, no one can say that we have been dilatory in the Standing Committee.
Many of my hon. Friends and the Secretary of State himself have said that there are advantages in timetable motions. I readily accept that, and I think that ideas of the sort put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty as well as by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson) and the hon. Member for Bedwellty should be looked at extremely carefully. But whatever advantages there may be in timetable motions, one can have those advantages only if two premises obtain.
First, there must be enough time overall to discuss the Bill. I have already shown that two months is not enough time for the Committee stage of a Bill of this complexity. Second, we must know at the start what the time will be so that we may give proper priority to each part of the Bill. Neither of those two premises has obtained in this case.
It is no use, therefore, the Secretary of State saying that we all agree that there are advantages in timetable motions and everyone ought accordingly to support this one. That was the effect of his argument, and we reject it completely.
At the end of the day we shall have a Bill worse than it need be. We on this side always knew that it would be a bad Bill, but it will be even worse than it need have been because of the inadequate time given to its scrutiny. By proceeding in this way, we do the Bill no good, and we do Parliament no good. I very much hope that, even if we lose the Division on the motion tonight, the bad example of this Bill and the pressure of the speeches of hon. Members on both sides in the debate will prod the Government to look again at the way in which we treat major pieces of legislation.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): I call the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) to move his manuscript amendment.

9.14 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Price: I beg to move, as a manuscript amendment to the motion, to leave out lines 57 to 59.
The effect of the amendment is to delete paragraph 8 of the motion. As a complete newcomer to pipelines, I apologise for joining in this private fight, but I am moving what I regard as an important amendment which concerns the fundamental rights of back benchers, and I hope that I may have a minute or two to explain some of the history of this matter.
It was traditional at one time, before 1972, that guillotine motions should contain a paragraph of this kind although such a paragraph effectively removes back benchers' rights to move for leave to introduce Ten-Minute Bills on days when the guillotine is in operation. There was considerable discussion of this matter in 1972. When the right hon. Member for Carlshalton (Mr. Carr) was Leader of the House, he said:
I doubt whether it is necessary to have this restriction.
He went on to say that although he could not make any arrangements for that particular timetable motion
I will take this point carefully into account and see whether we can avoid this unfortunate effect in future."—[Official Report, 25th May 1972; Vol. 837, c. 1706.]
Many hon. Members may remember that in March last year when a guillotine motion was introduced in respect of the Finance Bill, I was allowed to move a manuscript amendment. I was personally involved because my Mentally Retarded Persons (Evidence) Bill would have fallen. That amendment was supported by both Front Benches and by hon. Members of all parties.
When another guillotine motion was introduced without the restriction, many of us assumed that the backbenchers of this House had won one of those minor victories we gain over the years and preserved our Ten-Minute Bills against erosion by Government power. But now the Leader of the House has slipped this wretched little clause back into this guillotine motion. All it does is to pinch six or seven minutes from the precious time of backbenchers. I very much hope that hon. Members from all sides will support me in the lobbies. The amend-

ment makes no difference to the operation of the guillotine, but it does protect backbenchers.
It is absurd that the full might of the Government should be used to smash this tiny privilege of hon. Members. On points of order earlier, the Leader of the House made a mini-speech setting out his reasons for the petty little trick of slipping back this clause. His main reason seemed to be that as we are so near the end of a Session—at least we assume it is near the end, but the Session could go on for another year yet—no Private Members' Bills introduced next week could possibly get through to become law. With the greatest of respect to my right hon. Friend, that is not the point. This procedure gives hon. Members the opportunity to get publicity for a Ten-Minute Bill and it is often the germ of legislation which might not come to fruition until years later.
I take some little pride in the fact that last year, although my Adult Literacy Resources Bill did not become law, the Government devoted £1 million in additional resources later in the year and started some real provision to help deal with this problem. By slipping back this nasty little paragraph, the Government is saying that two backbenchers will be denied the opportunity of initiating ideas or seminal legislation.
That is not the sort of thing that any hon. Member wishes to see, and I invite the House to join me in the Lobby in support of the amendment tonight.

9.20 p.m.

Mr. Peter Rost: This wretched Bill was not given a Second Reading until 30th April, and it did not go into Committee until 30th May. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) understated his case when he said that it had been in Committee for two months. It has not, because there was a two-week recess during that period. It has been in Committee for only six weeks and the first two and a half of those were for morning sittings only. Afternoon sittings began on 10th June after the recess. Only a week or so ago the Government tabled 100 amendments, very few of which have since been debated. Several hundred amendments will not be debated if the guillotine is put into effect. Many of


those amendments will have been tabled by the Government. We know what that will do to improve the standing of Parliament and the standing of the Government. if they have any standing left.
We must therefore consider why we are being asked to support the motion. Is it because the Bill is urgent? There already are adequate controls over North Sea oil resources, with adequate taxing and participation. No one could maintain that there is a need for urgency. The Bill will certainly not help solve the energy crisis, and it is completely irrelevant to the major crisis facing the country.
We are not being asked to guillotine the Bill because the Opposition are attempting to filibuster it. Even the Government have not suggested that. The reason we are being asked to vote for the guillotine is that it happens to suit the Government to continue their steamrollering process to get the legislation through by the middle of this month. There is no other reason or justification for their action.
The Government want to clear the decks before the back-bench rebellion gets going when the statutory incomes policy legislation is introduced in a week or so. The Government are also determined to push through their nationalisation proposals regardless of the national crisis and the national interest.
Therefore this legislation and the motion should be rejected. The legislation is irrelevant and damaging and costly. It is irrelevant because it creates no new wealth for the nation. It will not provide new jobs and it will not help to stem inflation. It certainly will not help to improve industrial relations or productivity. In other words, it does nothing to help the major problems facing us today. It will not even produce the oil more quickly, and it will certainly not produce more oil.
The Bill has already shaken confidence in the industry, a confidence we cannot do without. In spite of the desperate efforts of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to restore confidence in the industry through negotiations, his efforts are being undermined. Confidence has once again been shattered by the Government's arrogant approach to this legislation. They are seeking to push it through without the second half of the

Bill having been seriously discussed. Many important aspects of the legislation will not be debated at all.
Next, the Bill will be costly because it will divert vast sums of money, which ought to be going to the Exchequer, to promote Socialist ambitions for a nationalised oil industry. It will aggravate inflation rather than help cure it. It will be costly because it will continue the programme of nationalisation and give the wrong priority to public spending. And this at a time when other Ministers are making vague noises about having to cut public expenditure, and some are even coming forward and doing so.
We are getting cuts in the expenditure on local government. We are getting cuts in the education programme, so the education of our children will suffer. The National Health Service is in a state of collapse. The building programme is grinding to a halt. Social services are suffering from a lack of finance. All this because the Government are finally having to wake up to their vast overspending over the past 16 months and take some action to curb inflation. Against that background, we have the continued programme of nationalisation proceeding regardless.
How on earth do the Government expect to retain the support and confidence of the nation if, on the one hand, they are proceeding with these extravagant programmes of spending on the extension of nationalised industry and, on the other, they are having to cut public spending in other directions? What the Government do not seem to have accepted is that not only will the Bill, if it is rushed through, aggravate inflation, but it will increase unemployment, because to finance this nationalisation of the North Sea cuts in other directions will have to be even worse than they would otherwise be, and this will mean jobs having to be sacrificed.
I suggest that those who vote for this motion tonight will not only be voting for an irrelevant, costly and damaging speeding up of a piece of legislation that will add to the problems facing the nation but they will be sanctioning an extension of unemployment and increasing the problems of inflation instead of facing them as we ought to be doing. Above all, the manner in which we are


being asked to do this will add to the contempt for Parliament that is being shown by the Government. The Government are showing contempt for Parliament, for the realities of the national crisis and for the national interest.
We are being asked to agree to this motion by a Government who are hellbent on a further Socialist suicidal path. That is my justification for asking the House to reject this motion.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: I look back with some satisfaction, as some hon. Members will anticipate, to the speech I made at the fifth sitting of the Committee when I warned what would happen to this Bill. It is worth quoting what I said then:
Shall I have to sit here and after the sixth sitting, when we have said very little
—I was referring to Government Members—
and the hon. Members opposite have talked their heads off, and after the seventh, eighth and ninth sittings, the Government will say. Ah, but we want our Bill—Let's have a guillotine on it'?
The significance of those words will be clear to all.
At that sitting the Secretary of State had said that terribly slow progress was being made. It seemed that I had the right to express my concern about the motion then before us, which was to sit on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at half-past four without any definite finishing time, as well as sitting on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. I was saying that it seemed rather ludicrous, after only four sittings, to begin pursuing the conventional processes which would involve the early introduction of the guillotine. Later in that same speech I went on:
I would rather he more honest. I would rather the Government said from the begin-nine, 'This Bill has 50 clauses and we shall have no more than 30 sittings or whatever the number is. It should be done through the usual channels."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 10th June 1975; c. 236–7.]
I was making it clear that the whole procedural business of this House was being shown to be inadequate to meet the needs of a Government pushing through too much legislation. I understand that. the right hon. Member for

Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) made some reference to me earlier in the debate. I do not quarrel with that.

Mr. Peyton: I should like to assure the hon. Gentleman that it was entirely in a sense of approval. I hope that it will not be too embarrassing for the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Leadbitter: When a Member of Parliament becomes embarrassed that is the time for him to retire. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. He quoted me correctly. Others have referred to what I have said. The House is not served well when an important item of Government policy, of which I approve, is forced through in such a way that neither side is satisfied that business is being carried out efficiently. I object strongly to business of this importance being brought before us late in the Session, taken into Committee and then a guillotine being imposed within a short time so that instead of debating 50 clauses we shall be debating only 30. The remainder of the clauses and the schedules must be dealt with by 15th July. Everyone must accept that this cannot be the right way to conduct our business. I do not particularly criticise this Government. My comments in Committee referred to practices common to all Governments.
Let me describe the major objection. We have these preliminary conventional processes moving towards a guillotine. During that time those Members on the Government side of the Committee must sit down and keep quiet. If they do otherwise the suggestion is made that they are taking up valuable time needed by Members of the Opposition. When the Government change, those who once were silent become the Opposition and the same procedure applies. Those who originally advocated one kind of process change their attitude because they have moved to the other side of the Committee. That means that until a guillotine is introduced there is a tendency for the business not to be debated properly.
In Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Mr. Ellis) said, referring to the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson):
Does he not accept that we have spent half the time of the Committee on a wide-ranging debate on the principles of Scottish nationalism, which, important though they may be, are


hardly appropriate to the Committee".[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 10th June 1975; c. 240.]
I do not blame the hon. Member for Dundee, East. He was using an archaic procedural nonsense to promote his pet hobby and, because of the procedures, we could not get him off his feet. As I have said, I do not quarrel with the fact that the hon. Gentleman did that. What I am criticising are the procedures which allowed it to happen.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and even for the bone of comfort which he threw me. I put forward pertinent amendments in Committee relating to the construction and organisation of the British National Oil Corporation and how it should be divided into component parts. Also, does the hon. Gentleman realise that over 800,000 people in Scotland voted for the hobby to which he has referred?

Mr. Leadbitter: I shall not be diverted, but I recall the hon. Gentleman talking about Scottish oil in Scottish territorial waters only to discover that there is no such thing as Scottish territorial waters.
I took a stand very early on in the Committee proceedings. If hon. Members take the luxury of falling in line with the view which I advocated then in my protest, we shall have taken a step in the direction of convincing the House of the need for procedural reform so that Standing Committee work may be arranged from the beginning by timetable. The advantage of an arranged timetable as against the present procedure is that it imposes a time limit, which any private enterprise business would do. If private enterprise, a nationalised undertaking, a public utility or a local authority adopted the procedures which we adopt, it would be bankrupt in double quick time.
If there were a timetable motion from the beginning, and if, after due consideration between both sides, it was understood that 30 sittings would be sufficient to deal with amendments to 50 clauses, there would be time for Members to discuss the Bill. We should not have the nonsense of hon. Members on one side sitting quietly while hon. Members on the other side used all the time to make virtually Second Reading speeches—although I am not prepared to admit that

too many Second Reading speeches were made in the Committee on this Bill. I found all the Committee contributions by right hon. and hon. Members opposite which I heard very interesting and worthy of attention. I do not say that out of a desire to plead for support from the Opposition. I state it as a fact.
We have not had much time to deal with the Bill in Committee. The Bill should have been introduced earlier. There should have been a timetable from the beginning, in which case the Bill would have proceeded much further than it has.

9.40 p.m.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: We listened to the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter) with interest. We look forward to seeing whether his feet carry him where his voice has gone.
I assure the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Stott) that my speech on this occasion will be far from Gladstonian, as I shall ration myself to 10 minutes.
We accept the arguments of the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price). We hope that he will press his amendment to restore the small allocation of Private Members' time which the motion proposes to remove. If he does, the Opposition will support him, notwithstanding the fact that the allocation comes out of the limited time for report and Third Reading allowed in the timetable motion.
Some guillotines are made necessary by the nature of the legislation which a Government try to pass through the House. In such cases a timetable motion from the beginning may be inevitable. That did not apply to this case, where the Government's handling of their business was leisurely, not to say lackadaisical, from the outset. Some guillotines may be inevitable because of the nature of the debates, an Opposition filibuster and obstruction, or where there is a determination to deny the Government any progress. No one has suggested that that is the case with this guillotine. Many hon. Members have gone out of their way to say how relevant and modest have been the Opposition contributions.
Some guillotines come about as a result of the incompetence of the Government in managing their business, leading to their running out of time. That is the kind of guillotine with which we are now faced.
The policy of this Bill was announced on 11th July 1974. My hon. Friends have drawn attention to the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, the Secretary of State for Industry, on 4th November 1974. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Bill would be coming
within a matter of weeks, and certainly in the New Year".—[Official Report, 4th November 1974; Vol. 888, c. 824.]
It was five months before the Bill was published. This is a major measure, by any standards. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor described it on Second Reading as
one of the most important ever to be brought before Parliament."—[Official Report, 30th April 1975; Vol. 891, c. 482.]
Yet it started five months late—too late to reach the statute book without a guillotine. That is the reason for tonight's guillotine. It is a disgraceful reason. In an intervention my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) asked the right hon. Gentleman why it was so late. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to disclaim any responsibility. He described himself as the godfather of the Bill. His guillotine motion is an invitation to Parliament to accept an offer which it cannot refuse—like other godfathers.
Given that the Government were late across the starting line I should have thought that they would crowd on sail from the beginning. A number of suggestions were made to that effect. That would have been necessary to enable the Government to catch up on the timetable. The Government agreed before Whitsun that there would be no afternoon sittings. When we moved to afternoon sittings the Government agreed that we should rise at dinner time. The Government only obtained agreement to that sittings motion because, having made a deal, the Opposition Front Bench stuck to it and abstained on the Division. As if that were not enough, on more than one occasion the Government adjourned, prematurely, for their own purposes.
Until now the Government's attitude to the Bill has been leisurely. Yet we have

made excellent progress. In 19 sittings we covered 19 clauses and one schedule. We are already half-way through a complex and technical schedule. Dilatory motions have been few and short and points of order have been very limited. The Opposition have acted with great restraint, great responsibility and considerable forbearance, but it is all in vain. Responsibility has been rewarded with a guillotine.
The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) talked of the virtues of parliamentary reform and of timetables from the outset: but the essential fact must never be lost sight of, that with a Government deaf to rational argument, time is an Opposition's only weapon—time to debate, time to dissent and time to press and press the case. All guillotines dash that weapon from an Opposition's hands. I recognise that some guillotines are necessary to overcome obstruction, but a guillotine the only reason for which is Government incompetence is fundamentally undemocratic.
The case against this guillotine goes much further. It is that much of the Bill is not only unnecessary but is deeply damaging to the national interest. It is being said that this week in politics is one of the most important in our post-war economic history. As my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) said, inflation is 25 per cent. and rising, unemployment looks like reaching 1½ million by next year, the borrowing requirement is £12 billion and rising and the Government are at last beginning to face the horrifying reality of the crisis which confronts us.
Yet the Bill proposes to add certainly £2 billion and probably more to the Government's borrowing requirement. It is not merely the £900 million of the borrowing limits in Clause 6. It is far higher than that. It includes the £500 million or £600 million of royalties being siphoned off to finance the BNOC, and it includes an equivalent sum through the exemption of the BNOC from petroleum revenue tax. The Government in Committee have totally failed to convince anyone that the existence of the National Oil Account provided for in Clause 40 has any purpose other than to fudge the true size of the borrowing needed to put the BNOC in


funds. That would be bad enough in normal times, because it makes a monkey of parliamentary control of spending, but in times of desperate economic crisis the irresponsibility is terrifying. At the very least it must be debated and debated fully.
Clauses 40 and 41 dealing with the National Oil Account have yet to be reached. That is probably the biggest single tranche of new Exchequer funding of a public corporation in the entire history of Parliament, and it will be debated with all the stultifying constraints of a guillotine because the Government have got their legislative programme in a mess. We shall not be able to do what the Under-Secretary of State did on the debate on petroleum revenue tax exemption. He adjourned early because he said:
I want to give careful consideration to some of the points that have been made."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 26th June 1975; c. 940.]
The Government cannot do that when they are operating on a guillotine.
So far we have debated about one-third of the Bill. We have yet to deal with the new model Clauses 15 and 16 with their extremely damaging restrospective powers to limit production and, indeed, to limit the powers of industry to raise finance. We have to deal with pipelines and the inadequate protection for the large sums of money involved, refinery control, the National Oil Account, the guarantees to Burmah and all the rest. All this is against the background of activity in the North Sea slowing down, of platform yards desperately searching for orders and the near cessation of the financing of development programmes on the Continental Shelf. Offshore oil is Britain's life-line, not in perpetuity but over the next 15 to 20 years. If this Labour Government through a mixture of incompetence and intransigence continue to put it at risk, they will be condemned not only in the House of Commons but by the whole country.

9.50 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. John Smith): We come to the end of what has been an unusually good humoured and relaxed debate on a timetable motion. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set the tone for the debate by the way in which he

proposed the motion. It has been not accusation and counter-accusation, but serious consideration of an important matter.
Perhaps I should say at the very start that the Government propose to accept the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price).
In this short debate we have had an opportunity to consider the wider question of how Parliament goes about its business. In Committee, when we had a short discussion about the Government's decision to move towards a guillotine motion, I was struck by how many Members on both sides of the Committee took the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the way in which Standing Committees operated and the way in which Parliament went about its business in Committee. This discussion has continued tonight and many hon. Members in all quarters of the House have taken the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the way in which Parliament presently organises itself.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), in a speech of particular note, expressed with clarity and conviction his feeling that we had to think very carefully about altering our procedures. That was echoed by my hon. Friends the Members for Westhoughton (Mr. Stott) and Leeds, West (Mr. Dean) and by the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. Gray), who, unfortunately, had to make a good speech from the back benches, but who has now been restored to favour on the Front Bench that he generally graces. He said that he had no objection in principle to timetable motions, a thought that has occurred in many speeches.
It would not be possible for any party that has held office in this country to object to timetable motions in principle, because it would have behind it a record of its own activities when in office. That applies to my own party as well as to the Conservative Party. There is a growing conviction that to make too much fuss about a timetable is indulging in a certain amount of hypocrisy. I must say, to be fair to the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton), that we got a slight whiff of grapeshot when he expressed his opposition in almost uncharacteristically moderate terms.
This has been the way in which the debate has been handled. It signals the changing mood of Parliament and a much greater readiness on the part of hon. Members on both sides to question the way in which we go about our business. A welcome opportunity has been taken by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen tonight. They have seized in the best parliamentary manner on a particular matter to raise a general question.

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman would be very wrong to learn from the good conduct of the Opposition lessons that his complacency is too readily teaching him.

Mr. Smith: That is the first ill-humoured note that we have had in the debate so far. It is strange that we should get it from the right hon. Member for Yeovil, whose attention to Parliament is so detailed that he wandered out of the Chamber when he had finished his speech and returned only at the end of the debate, whereas other hon. Members have sat here throughout the debate. If I am to be taught any lesson in parliamentary manners, I shall require a better teacher than the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Peyton: It has just been observed to me that that is the kind of conduct that my right hon. and hon. Friends have had to endure from the Under-Secretary throughout the Committee stage of the Bill. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that he is doing his reputation no good.

Mr. Smith: I should have thought that if the right hon. Gentleman were so sensitive, he would reflect that it is unusual to make the opening speech for the Opposition and then wander out of the Chamber for all the debate and return only at the end. There may be very good reasons for that—I do not know—but it is certainly unusual.
The reason for this motion is that we want to finish the Committee stage of the Bill in the House of Commons by the middle of this month so that the Bill may go to the other place and go through the procedure that is required there.
It is a very important Bill. It sets up a new public corporation, the British National Oil Corporation, which will hold

the State's share, which will be achieved through participation negotiations, and which will be available to receive a share of the licensing in future licensing rounds.
It also introduces very important depletion controls in the North Sea and for the whole of our Continental Shelf. Conservative hon. Members have complained that the Government have been slow to bring forward this measure given that they announced certain basic items in their policy in July 1974. Of course, as those Members who have served in Committee will know, it is a complex and detailed Bill. There was a great deal which the Government had to do and a great deal of precise legislation which had to be formulated.
I am sure that hon. Members who have not served in Committee, and who perhaps have not watched developments in this area with great care, will be surprised to know that the Government inherited a situation in which there were no depletion controls over the exploitation of the North Sea. We were told by the right hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) in his closing sentences that North Sea oil is this country's lifeline. If it is such an important part of our economic future—and I accept that it is—it is surprising that there should be no power given to the Government regarding the rate at which such an important asset should be used. However, we inherited that deficiency and we intend to put it right by means of the Bill.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: If the Government are not to exercise any of these controls for years and years according to the answer given on 6th December, why do the Government need the Bill now?

Mr. Smith: We need to put it on the statute book so that it will be clear that the Government have the necessary controls. I find it surprising that although the Opposition spent two years in Government reviewing North Sea oil policy we inherited no taxation proposals, no proposals for participation and no proposals for depletion.

Mr. Skeet: Surely the Minister will recognise that he has not completed negotiations and that negotiations will not be finalised until the end of the year. Further, he will recognise that he is culpable of breaching contracts, an extremely serious


matter. These issues must be discussed properly in Committee.

Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman is well informed on these matters and he will know that agreement in principle has been reached with a number of licensees.

Mr. Skeet: How many?

Mr. Smith: With four at the moment, and discussions are proceeding with the others. One of the things that makes me wonder about the genuineness of some Conservative opposition to the Bill is the Opposition's refusal to rule out participation as a policy. It seems that they would adopt it themselves in future licensing rounds. We know that every producer country, with the exception of the United States, adopts a policy of participation towards the exploitation of offshore oil. Therefore, the Government have not devised a unique policy. It is a policy which has found acceptance in many countries throughout the world.

Mr. Skeet: rose—

Mr. Smith: I think that the hon. Gentleman must concede that I have been reasonably generous in giving way to him already. Indeed, I have been doing so throughout our proceedings in Committee. The great silence of the Conservative Party as regards future licensing rounds and whether it would adopt participation is interesting. Right wing Governments in other countries have adopted it. There is a certain amount of suspicion as to the genuineness of the opposition to some parts of the Bill.
The Labour Party was committed to the Bill in two General Elections. We have made it the basis of our policy for a long time. We believe that it is vital that sufficient public control over such a vital asset as offshore oil, which will be

of such great importance to the nation's future, plays an important part in our legislation. That must be so when we are dealing with fossil fuels which can be used only once. It is essential that the Government have proper controls over their use, otherwise, at an important period in their development, we might fritter away the assets with which this country has fortunately been endowed.

It cannot be argued that this is not an important Bill. It features an important part of the Government's legislative programme. We have already had very full discussion in Committee on the setting up of the British National Oil Corporation. I do not believe that the Opposition can say that they have not had a good chance to discuss the matter in detail. However, we need to consider the rest of the Bill as well. It is for those reasons that the Government put forward this motion.

I hope that the House will be wise enough to accept the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West and the main motion so that we can bring consideration of the Bill to an end during the course of this Session, and so that we can see established very soon Britain's own national oil company and the Government endowed with the controls that the Conservative Party—

It being three hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded to put the Questions necessary to dispose of them, pursuant to Standing Order No. 44 (Allocation of time to Bills).

Amendment agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put:—

The House divided: Ayes 275, Noes 259.

Division No. 275.]
AYES
[10.00 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Bidwell, Sydney
Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)


Allaun, Frank
Bishop, E. S.
Campbell, Ian


Anderson, Donald
Blenkinsop, Arthur
Canavan, Dennis


Archer, Peter
Boardman, H.
Cant, R. B.


Armstrong, Ernest
Booth, Albert
Carmichael, Neil


Ashley, Jack
Bottomley, Rt Hon Arthur
Carter-Jones, Lewis


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Boyden, James (Bish Auck)
Cartwright, John


Atkinson, Norman
Bray, Dr Jeremy
Castle, Rt Hon Barbara


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Clemitson, Ivor


Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (Heywood)
Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)


Bates, Alf
Brown, Ronald (Hackney S)
Cohen, Stanley


Bean, R. E.
Buchan, Norman
Coleman, Donald


Benn, Rt Hon Anthony Wedgwood
Buchanan, Richard
Colquhoun, Mrs Maureen


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Butler, Mrs Joyce (Wood Green)
Concannon, J. D.




Conlan, Bernard
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Price, C. (Lewisham W)


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Price, William (Rugby)


Corbett, Robin
Johnson, Walter (Derby S)
Radice, Giles


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Richardson, Miss Jo


Crawshaw, Richard
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Cronin, John
Judd, Frank
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony
Kaufman, Gerald
Roderick, Caerwyn


Cryer, Bob
Kelley, Richard
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Cunningham, G. (Islington S)
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Davidson, Arthur
Kinnock, Neil
Rooker, J. W.


Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)
Lambie, David
Roper, John


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Leadbitter, Ted
Rose, Paul B.


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Lee, John
Rowlands, Ted


Deakins, Eric
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Ryman, John


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Lever, Rt Hon Harold
Sandelson, Neville


Delargy, Hugh
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Sedgemore, Brian


Dell, Rt Hon Edmund
Lipton, Marcus
Selby, Harry


Dempsey, James
Litterick, Tom
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)


Doig, Peter
Lomas, Kenneth
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-u-Lyne)


Dormand, J. D.
Loyden, Eddie
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Luard, Evan
Short, Rt Hon E. (Newcastle C)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lyon, Alexander (York)
Short, Mrs Renée (Wolv NE)


Dunnett, Jack
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Edelman, Maurice
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Edge, Geoff
McCartney, Hugh
Sillars, James


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
McElhone, Frank
Silverman, Julius


English, Michael
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Skinner, Dennis


Ennals, David
McGuire, Michael (Ince)
Small, William


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)


Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Mackintosh, John P.
Snape, Peter


Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Maclennan, Robert
Spearing, Nigel


Faulds, Andrew
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)
Spriggs, Leslie


Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
McNamara, Kevin
Stallard, A. W.


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)
Madden, Max
Stott, Roger


Flannery, Martin
Magee, Bryan
Strang, Gavin


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)
Strauss, Rt Hon G. R.


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Foot, Rt Hon Michael
Marks, Kenneth
Swain, Thomas


Ford, Ben
Marquand, David
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Forrester, John
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Fowler, Gerald (The Wrekin)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)


Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Freeson, Reginald
Maynard, Miss Joan
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Garrett, John (Norwich S)
Meacher, Michael
Tierney, Sydney


Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Tinn, James


George, Bruce
Mendelson, John
Tomlinson, John


Gilbert, Dr John
Mikardo, Ian
Tomney, Frank


Ginsburg, David
Millan, Bruce
Torney, Tom


Gould, Bryan
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Tuck, Raphael


Gourlay, Harry
Miller, Mrs. Millie (Ilford N)
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Graham, Ted
Molloy. William
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Moonman, Eric
Walden, Brian (B'ham, L'dyw'd)


Grant, John (Islington C)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Grocott, Bruce
Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Moyle, Roland
Ward, Michael


Hardy, Peter
Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick
Watkins, David


Harper, Joseph
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Watkinson, John


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Newens, Stanley
Weetch, Ken


Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Noble, Mike
Weitzman, David


Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy
Oakes, Gordon
Wellbeloved, James


Hatton, Frank
Ogden, Eric
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Hayman, Mrs Helene
O'Halloran, Michael
White, James (Pollok)


Healey, Rt Hon Denis
O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian
Whitehead, Phillip


Heffer, Eric S.
Orbach, Maurice
Willey, Rt Hon Frederick


Hooley, Frank
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley
Williams, Alan (Swansea W)


Horam, John
Ovenden, John
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Howell, Denis (B'ham Sm H)
Owen, Dr David
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)
Padley, Walter
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Huckfield, Les
Palmer, Arthur
Wilson, Rt Hon H. (Huyton)


Hughes, Rt Hon C (Anglesey)
Park, George
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)
Parker, John
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)
Parry, Robert
Woof, Robert


Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Pavitt, Laurie
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)
Peart, Rt Hon Fred
Young, David (Bolton E)


Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Pendry, Tom



Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Perry, Ernest
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Jeger, Mrs Lena
Phipps, Dr Colin
Mr. John Elllis and


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg
Mr. David Stoddart.







NOES


Adley, Robert
Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
More, Jasper (Ludlow)


Alison, Michael
Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Morgan, Geraint


Amery, Rt Hon Julian
Gray, Hamish
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral


Arnold, Tom
Grieve, Percy
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)


Awdry, Daniel
Griffiths, Eldon
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)


Baker, Kenneth
Grist, Ian
Neave, Airey


Banks, Robert
Grylls, Michael
Neubert, Michael


Beith, A. J.
Hall, Sir John
Newton, Tony


Bell, Ronald
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Nott, John


Bennett. Dr Reginald (Fareham)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Oppenheim, Mrs Sally


Benyon,W.
Hampson, Dr Keith
Page, John (Harrow West)


Berry, Hon Anthony
Hannam, John
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)


Biffen, John
Harrison, Col Sir Harwood (Eye)
Pardoe, John


Biggs-Davison, John
Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Mist
Parkinson, Cecil


Blaker, Peter
Hastings, Stephen
Pattle, Geoffrey


Body, Richard
Havers, Sir Michael
Penhaligon, David


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Hawkins, Paul
Percival, Ian


Bottomley, Peter
Hayhoe, Barney
Peyton, Rt Hon John


Bowden, A. (Brighton, Kemptown)
Henderson, Douglas
Pink, R. Bonner


Boyson, Dr Rhodes (Brent)
Heseltine, Michael
Powell, Rt Hon J. Enoch


Brittan, Leon
Higgins, Terence L.
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Brotherton, Michael
Holland, Philip
Prior, Rt Hon James


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Hooson, Emlyn
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Bryan, Sir Paul
Hordern, Peter
Raison, Timothy


Buck, Antony
Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey
Rathbone, Tim


Budgen, Nick
Howell, David (Guildford)
Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter


Bulmer, Esmond
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Rees, Peter (Dover &amp; Deal)


Burden, F. A.
Hunt, John
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Carlisle, Mark
Hurd, Douglas
Reid, George


Carr, Rt Hon Robert
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)


Channon, Paul
Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Churchill, W. S.
James, David
Ridsdale, Julian


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Jenkin, Rt Hon P. (Wanst'd &amp; W'df'd)
Rifkind, Malcolm


Clark, William (Croydon S)
Jessel, Toby
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Clegg, Walter
Jones, Arthur (Daventry)
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Cockcroft, John
Jopling, Michael
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Cope, John
Kershaw, Anthony
Rost, Peter (SE Derbyshire)


Cordle, John H.
Kilfedder, James
Royle, Sir Anthony


Cormack, Patrick
Kimball, Marcus
Sainsbury, Tim


Costain, A. P.
King, Evelyn (South Dorset)
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Crawford, Douglas
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Scott, Nicholas


Critchley, Julian
Knight, Mrs Jill
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Crouch, David
Knox, David
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Crowder, F. P.
Lamont, Norman
Shepherd, Colin


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Lane, David
Shersby, Michael


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Sims, Roger


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Latham, Michael (Melton)
Sinclair, Sir George


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Lawrence, Ivan
Skeet, T. H. H.


Durant, Tony
Lawson, Nigel
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Le Marchant, Spencer
Smith, Dudley (Warwick)


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Emery, Peter
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Sproat, Iain


Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Loveridge, John
Stainton, Keith


Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Luce, Richard
Stanbrook, Ivor


Eyre, Reginald
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Fairbairn, Nicholas
McCrindle, Robert
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


Fairgrieve, Russell
Macfarlane, Neil
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)


Farr, John
MacGregor, John
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Fell, Anthony
McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)
Stokes, John


Finsberg, Geoffrey
McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)
Stradling Thomas, J.


Fisher, Sir Nigel
Madel, David
Tapsell, Peter


Fletcher, Alen (Edinburgh)
Marten, Neil
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Mates, Michael
Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart)


Fookes, Miss Janet
Mather, Carol
Temple-Morris, Peter


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C't'd)
Maude, Angus
Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret


Fox, Marcus
Maudling, Rt Hon Reginald
Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)


Fraser, Rt Hon H. (Stafford &amp; St)
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)


Freud, Clement
Mayhew, Patrick
Townsend, Cyril D.


Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Trotter, Neville


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Tugendhat, Christopher


Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)
Mills, Peter
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Gilmour, Rt Hon Ian (Chesham)
Miscampbell, Norman
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Viggers, Peter


Godber, Rt Hon Joseph
Moate, Roger
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Goodhart, Philip
Molyneaux, James
Wakeham, John


Goodhew, Victor
Monro, Hector
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)


Goodlad, Alastair
Montgomery, Fergus
Wall, Patrick


Gorst, John
Moore, John (Croydon C)
Walters, Dennis


Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)

Warren, Kenneth







Watt, Hamish
Wiggin, Jerry
Younger, Hon George


Weatherill, Bernard
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)



Wells, John
Winterton, Nicholas
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Welsh, Andrew
Wood, Rt Hon Richard
Mr. Adam Butler and


Whitelaw, Rt Hon William
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)
Mr. Fred Silvester.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Ordered,

That the following provisions shall apply to the remaining Proceedings on the Bill:—

Committee

1. The Standing Committee to which the Bill is allocated shall report the Bill to the House on or before the 15th day of July 1975.

Report and Third Reading

2.—(1) The Proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading of the Bill shall be completed in two allotted days and shall be brought to a conclusion at Seven o'clock on the second of those days; and for the purposes of Standing Order No. 43 (Business Committee) this Order shall be taken to allot to the Proceedings on Consideration such part of those days as the Resolution of the Business Committee may determine.

(2) The Business Committee shall report to the House their resolutions as to the Proceedings on Consideration of the Bill, and as to the allocation of time between those Proceedings and Proceedings on Third Reading, not later than the second day on which the House sits after the day on which the Chairman of the Standing Committee reports the Bill to the House.

(3) The resolutions in any report made under Standing Order No. 43 (Business Committee) may be varied by a further report so made, whether or not within the time specified in sub-paragraph (2) of this paragraph, and whether or not the resolutions have been agreed to by the House.

(4) The resolutions of the Business Committee may include alterations in the order in which proceedings on Consideration of the Bill are taken.

Procedure in Standing Committee

3.—(1) At a Sitting of the Standing Committee at which any Proceedings on the Bill are to be brought to a conclusion under a Resolution of the Business Sub-Committee the Chairman shall not adjourn the Committee under any Order relating to the sittings of the Committee until the Proceedings have been brought to a conclusion.

(2) No Motion shall be made in the Standing Committee relating to the sitting of the Committee except by a Member of the Government, and the Chairman shall permit a brief explanatory statement from the Member who makes, and from a Member who opposes, the Motion, and shall then put the Question thereon.

4. No Motion shall be made to postpone any Clause, Schedule, new Clause or new Schedule but the resolutions of the Business Sub-Committee may include alterations in the order in which Clauses, Schedules, new Clauses

and new Schedules are to be taken in the Standing Committee.

Conclusion of Proceedings in Committee

5. On the conclusion of the Proceedings in any Committee on the Bill the Chairman shall report the Bill to the House without putting any Question.

Dilatory motions

6. No dilatory Motion with respect to, or in the course of, Proceedings on the Bill shall be made in the Standing Committee or on an allotted day except by a Member of the Government, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith.

Extra time on allotted days

7.—(l) On the first allotted day paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the Proceedings on the Bill for one hour after Ten o'clock.

(2) Any period during which Proceedings on the Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) shall be in addition to the period under this paragraph.

(3) If an allotted day is one to which a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 stands over from an earlier day, a period of time equal to the duration of the Proceedings upon that Motion shall be added to the period during which Proceedings on the Bill may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock under this paragraph, and the bringing to a conclusion of any Proceedings on the Bill which, under this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee, are to be brought to a conclusion on that day shall also be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on the Motion.

Private business

8. Any private business which has been set down for consideration at Seven o'clock on an allotted day shall, instead of being considered as provided by the Standing Orders, he considered at the conclusion of the Proceedings on the Bill on that day, and paragraph (1) of Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted business) shall apply to the private business for a period of three hours from the conclusion of the Proceedings on the Bill or, if those Proceedings are concluded before Ten o'clock, for a period equal to the time elapsing between Seven o'clock and the completion of those Proceedings.

Conclusion of Proceedings

9.—(1) For the purpose of bringing to a conclusion any Proceedings which are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee or the Business Sub-Committee and which have not previously been brought to a


conclusion, the Chairman or Mr. Speaker shall forthwith proceed to put the following Question (but no others), that is to say—

(a) the Question or Questions already proposed from the Chair, or necessary to bring to a decision a Question so proposed (including, in the case of a new Clause or new Schedule which has been read a second time, the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill);
(b) the Question on any amendment or Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of any Member, if that amendment or Motion is moved by a Member of the Government;
(c) any other Question necessary for the disposal of the business to be concluded;
and on a Motion so moved for a new Clause or a new Schedule, the Chairman or Mr. Speaker shall put only the Question that the Clause or Schedule be added to the Bill.

(2) Proceedings under sub-paragraph (1) of this paragraph shall not be interrupted under any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.

(3) If, at Seven o'clock on an allotted day, any Proceedings on the Bill which, under this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee, are to be brought to a conclusion at or before that time have not been concluded, any Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration) which, apart from this Order, would stand over to that time shall stand over until those Proceedings have been concluded.

(4) If a Motion for the adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 stands over to Seven o'clock on an allotted day, or to any later time under sub-paragraph (3) above, the bringing to a conclusion of any Proceedings on the Bill which, under this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee, are to be brought to a conclusion on that day at any hour falling after the beginning of the Proceedings on the Motion shall be postponed for a period equal to the duration of the Proceedings on that Motion.

Supplemental Orders

10.—(1) The Proceedings on any Motion moved in the House by a Member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order (including anything which might have been the subject of a report of the Business Committee or Business Sub-Committee) shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion one hour after they have been commenced, and the last foregoing

paragraph shall apply as if the Proceedings were Proceedings on the Bill on an allotted day.

(2) If on an allotted day on which any Proceedings on the Bill are to be brought to a conclusion at a time appointed by this Order or a Resolution of the Business Committee the House is adjourned, or the sitting is suspended, before that time no notice shall be required of a Motion moved at the next sitting by a Member of the Government for varying or supplementing the provisions of this Order.

Saving

11. Nothing in this Order or in a Resolution of the Business Sub-Committee or the Business Committee shall

(a) prevent any Proceedings to which the Order or Resolution applies from being taken or completed earlier than is required by the Order or Resolution, or
(b) prevent any business (whether on the Bill or not) from being proceeded with on any day after the completion of all such Proceedings on the Bill as are taken on that day.

Re-committal

12.—(1) References in this Order to Proceedings on Consideration or Proceedings on Third Reading include references to Proceedings, at those stages respectively, for, on or in consequence of re-committal.

(2) On an allotted day no debate shall he permitted to any Motion to re-commit the Bill (whether as a whole or otherwise), and Mr. Speaker shall put forthwith any Question necessary to dispose of the Motion, including the Question on any Amendment moved to the Question.

Interpretation

13.—(1) In this Order—
allotted day" means any day (other than a Friday) on which the Bill is put down as first Government Order of the Day provided that a Motion for allotting time to the proceedings on the Bill to be taken on that day either has been agreed on a previous day, or is set down for consideration on that day;
the Bill" means the Petroleum and Submarine Pipe-lines Bill;
Resolution of the Business Sub-Committee" means a Resolution of the Business sub-Committee as agreed to by the Standing Committee;
Resolution of the Business Committee" means a Resolution of the Business Committee as agreed to by the House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Motion made, and Question put,
That at this day's Sitting, the Child Benefit Bill and the Motion relating to European

Parliament (Membership) may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

The House divided: Ayes 205, Noes 98.

Division No. 276.]
AYES
[10.15 p.m.


Allaun, Frank
Gilbert, Dr John
Ovenden, John


Anderson, Donald
Graham, Ted
Owen, Dr David


Archer, Peter
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Palmer, Arthur


Armstrong, Ernest
Grant, John (Islington C)
Park, George


Ashley, Jack
Grocott, Bruce
Parry, Robert


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Pavitt, Laurie


Atkinson, Norman
Hardy, Peter
Peart, Rt Hon Fred


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Harper, Joseph
Pendry, Tom


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Phipps, Dr Colin


Bates, Alf
Hart, Rt Hon Judith
Prentice, Rt Hon Reg


Bean, R. E.
Hatton, Frank
Price, William (Rugby)


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Healey, Rt Hon Denis
Radice, Giles


Bidwell, Sydney
Henderson, Douglas
Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S)


Bishop, E. S.
Hooley, Frank
Reid, George


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Horam, John
Richardson, Miss Jo


Boardman, H
Howell, Denis (B'ham Sm H)
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Booth, Albert
Hoyle, Doug (Nelson)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Boyden, James (Bish Auck)
Huckfield, Lee
Roderick, Caerwyn


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Hughes, Rt Hon C (Anglesey)
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Brown, Robert C. (Newcastle W)
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rooker, J. W.


Buchanan, Richard
Irvine, Rt Hon Sir A. (Edge Hill)
Rose, Paul B.


Callaghan, Jim (Mlddleton &amp; P)
Irving, Rt Hon S. (Dartford)
Ryman, John


Campbell, Ian
Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)
Sandelson, Neville


Canavan,Dennis
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Sedge more, Brian


Cant, R. B.
Jay, Rt Hon Douglas
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Stechford)
Silkin, Rt Hon John (Deptford)


Cartwright, John
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Johnson, Walter (Derby S)
Sillars, James


Clemitson, Ivor
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Silverman, Julius


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
Jones, Barry (East Flint)
Skinner, Dennis


Cohen, Stanley
Judd, Frank
Small, William


Coleman, Donald
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Smith, John (N Lanarkshire)


Concannon, J. D.
Leadbitter, Ted
Snape, Peter


Conlan, Bernard
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Spearing, Nigel


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Stallard, A. W.


Corbett, Robin
Lipton, Marcus
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Lomas, Kenneth
Stoddart, David


Crawford, Douglas
Loyden, Eddie
Stott, Roger


Crosland, Rt Hon Anthony
Lyons, Edward (Bradford W)
Strang, Gavin


Cryer, Bob
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson
Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley


Davidson, Arthur
McCartney, Hugh
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Davies, Denzil (Llanelli)
McElhone, Frank
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Thorne, Stan (Preston South)


Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Tierney, Sydney


Deakins, Eric
Mackintosh, John P.
Tinn, James


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C)
Tomlinson, John


Dempsey, James
McNamara, Kevin
Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.


Doig, Peter
Madden, Max
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Dormand, J. D.
Maguire, Frank (Fermanagh)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Marks, Kenneth
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Dunnett, Jack
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Ward, Michael


Edelman, Maurice
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Watt, Hamish


Edge, Geoff
Mason, Rt Hon Roy
Welsh, Andrew


Edwards, Robert (Wolv SE)
Meacher, Michael
White, Frank R. (Bury)


English, Michael
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
White, James (Pollok)


Ennals, David
Mendelson, John
Whitehead, Phillip


Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Mikardo, Ian
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch)


Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)
Millan, Bruce
Williams, Rt Hon Shirley (Hertford)


Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Miller, Mrs. Millie (Ilford N)
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Wilson, William (Coventry SE)


Fitt, Gerard (Belfast W)
Moyle, Roland
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Flannery, Martin
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Woof, Robert


Ford, Ben
Newens, Stanley
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Forrester, John
Noble, Mike
Young, David (Bolton E)


Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Oakes, Gordon



Freeson, Reginald
O'Halloran, Michael
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Garrett, John (Norwich S)
O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian
Mr. Thomas Cox and


Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)
Orbach, Maurice
Mr. John Ellis.


George, Bruce
Orme, Rt Hon Stanley





NOES


Adley, Robert
Holland, Philip
Neubert, Michael


Alison, Michael
Hooson, Emlyn
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)


Benyon, W.
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Penhaligon, David


Berry, Hon Anthony
Hurd, Douglas
Prior, Rt Hon James


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Johnson Smith, G. (E Grinstead)
Pym, Rt Hon Francis


Bottomley, Peter
Jopling, Michael
Rathbone, Tim


Brittan, Leon
Kilfedder, James
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Brotherton, Michael
Kimball, Marcus
Rifkind, Malcolm


Burden, F. A.
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)


Carlisle, Mark
Knight, Mrs Jill
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Knox, David
Shepherd, Colin


Clark, Alan (Plymouth, Sutton)
Lane, David
Sims, Roger


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Lawrence, Ivan
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Cooke, Robert (Bristol W)
Lawson, Nigel
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Cope, John
Le Marchant, Spencer
Stanbrook, Ivor


Cordle, John H.
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Cormack, Patrick
Luce, Richard
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


Crowder, F. P.
McCrindle, Robert
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Dean, Paul (N Somerset)
Macfarlane, Neil
Tapsell, Peter


Dodsworth, Geoffrey
Mates, Michael
Taylor, R. (Croydon NW)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Thomas, Rt Hon P. (Hendon S)


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Mayhew, Patrick
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)


Durant, Tony
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Townsend, Cyril D.


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
Miscampbell, Norman
Vaughan, Dr. Gerard


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Emery, Peter
Monro, Hector
Walker, Rt Hon P. (Worcester)


Fairgrieve, Russell
Montgomery, Fergus
Wall, Patrick


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Weatherill, Bernard


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
Morgan, Geraint
Winterton, Nicholas


Freud, Clement
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Gow, Ian (Eastbourne)
Morris, Michael (Northampton S)



Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grimond, Rt Hon J.
Morrison, Hon Peter (Chester)
Mr. A. J. Beith and


Hannam, John
Neave, Alrey
Mr. John Pardoe.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Orders of the Day — CHILD BENEFIT BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Clause 1

ENTITLEMENT AND AMOUNT

10.25 p.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 10, leave 'out the appointed day' and insert '5th April 1976'.

Mr. Speaker: With this amendment we may also discuss the following amendments:
No. 15, in Clause 16, page 10, line 6 leave out from 'with' to end of line 7 and insert '5th April 1976'.
No. 17, in Clause 23, page 16, line 12 leave out from 'means' to end of line 13 and insert '5th April 1976'.
No. 18, in page 16, line 12 leave out from 'means' to end of line 13 and insert '5th April 1977'.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: I would like to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for choosing my amendment as the subject for our first debate.
It has precisely the same effect as the amendments in the names of my hon. Friends which are being considered with it. The object is to bring the child benefit into effect at the beginning of April 1976—the beginning of the tax year.
This is only a structure Bill and it does not lay down the rates of the benefit. They remain to be decided in future. But there are certain decisions we have to take now and one is to resolve to bring in this benefit as quickly as we can.
The amendent will not add to costs. It need not increase public expenditure and might even result in a reduction of public spending; but it would have a serious effect which would be an advantage. It would give hundreds of thousands of people part of their income as of right instead of leaving them entirely dependent on means-tested supplementary benefit. More important—and I hope that this might reach the Secretary of State's heart, because she is not easy to reach on this subject—it transfers cash from

wallets to handbags. By reducing the amount of tax concession through child allowances and increasing the money payable to mothers in child benefit we would do something to redress the balance between the spending power of menfolk and the spending power of mothers.
In the present inflationary conditions the men get the higher wages, but the women have to pay the higher prices. In all too many cases family finances do not recognise the strains on the family budget which are being imposed by inflation and the end of cheap food.
The Government have a duty to redress this balance. As head of the health service the Secretary of State will know that there are the beginnings of serious deficiency diseases in children resulting from under-care and under-feeding, and these are appearing not just in a handful of problem cases but are all too widespread throughout the population. By this broad redistribution of income from husbands to wives the amendment will change for the better the present pattern of spending. It will mean more money being spent in butchers' shops and less in betting shops.
The Secretary of State might ask why introduce the benefit from 1976; why not wait? It seems anomalous that the House should be hastening to bring the Bill on to the statute book and at the same time be prepared to keep mothers waiting 18 months or so before they may enjoy its benefits. If the Bill is so good—I have praised its principles—why should we tolerate this interminable delay?
10.30 p.m.
The Bill is an example of Socialist priorities. The Government are prepared to hand out hundreds, probably thousands, of millions of pounds in higher wages but they are not prepared to do anything quickly to help the mothers of families in need. We do not know yet whether the Government will settle for the 10 per cent. across-the-board wage increase. If so it would be another example of the Socialist Government giving most money to those with the least need. Perhaps they will accept the alternative proposal for a £6 increase. That would be better because—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. I want to do justice


by the hon. Member, but he must relate his argument to why the date must be changed.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: I am seeking to prove that it is necessary to act in a situation which is rapidly deteriorating. It is not sufficient to postpone the introduction of the child benefit, as the Secretary of State proposes, till the Greek calends. She has insisted that the Bill should impose on her no commitment as to when the benefit should be introduced. That is wrong. My amendment seeks to force her hand and to oblige her to recognise the needs of poor families by acting with the minimum of delay.
I recognise that there are overwhelming reasons why the benefit should be brought in at the beginning of a tax year. I say that it should be done at the beginning of the next tax year, not subsequently.
It seems that the Government feel they have money to release for personal spending, but they will do it at the expense of employers and not of society as a whole. So much for the social wage. When it comes to the crunch, we realise that the concept of the social wage is a sham. The Government will insist upon higher wages as compensation for the changes taking place in society through inflation; but they are not prepared to compensate the very people in most need, namely, those who have no income at all except supplementary benefit or what they are able to get through their family relationships.
The retail price index is a misleading guide to what has been happening in recent years. I was able to quote some figures in Committee. They have not been denied, and I should like to state them again briefly and add something to them. The Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection gave me comparisons of families of different sizes in the face of inflation from 1970 to 1974.
These are the figures that I have deduced from them. Average weekly household expenditure on basic items increased for one adult between 1970 and 1974 from £13·12 to £20·35, a rise of £7·23. The comparable figures for a family of two adults and two children was an increase from £31·70 to £53·20,

a rise of £21·50. That is about three times as much, although by reference to the retail price index, one would assume that inflation had affected both single people and families to the same extent. This means that the average family's outgoings had increased by £14·27 a week more than those of a single person during 1970 to 1974.
During the period October 1970 to October 1974 take-home pay for the average single adult manual worker rose from £19·98 to £32·59, an increase of £12·61, against an increase in basic costs of £7·23, which amply compensated for the rise in his basic living expenses. For a married man with two children under the age of 11 the take-home pay in the same period rose from £22·66 to £37·43, which was a rise of only £14·77 against a rise in costs of £21·50, based on official estimates. In round figures the average family lost £7 a week in the four years to October 1974, while the single man gained £5. The take-home pay of the average family was already well below the average household expenditure on essentials at the start of the period, so we have a serious situation.
The figures illustrate that something has to be done. We cannot allow the right hon. Lady to continue her dilatory way. We realise that in her opinion mothers do not matter as much as trade unionists because that is the position of her party and she is, above all, a very good partisan; but I still hope that what we have to say and the opinions of the House may change her. The figures I gave were only up to 1974. In 1975 inflation is that much worse, and in 1976 we expect that we shall go into an economic depression and that the Government will be obliged to bring food subsidies to an end. What was happening up to 1974 will become much worse in the next couple of years.
We come back to the old question: can the machinery cope? Again and again the right hon. Lady falls back on the argument that however much she might wish to help she cannot because it is not possible. We have to reflect on the facts. The tax credit policy of the previous Government was confirmed in the middle of 1973, so two years of agreement on the policy which is the main principle of the Bill have already elapsed. Although the right hon. Lady


saw to it that her party challenged the tax credit idea, I do not think it was ever thought that she was not accepting that part of it which referred to child benefit, which is what we find in the Bill. We have had two years of agreement in principle between the parties, and what I am saying is that action should now be taken in the next nine months.
We have this unhappy balance. On the one hand, there are 7 million mothers of first children waiting for benefit. On the other, there are perhaps 700—or possibly as many as 7,000—officials. The right hon. Lady inclines to their convenience rather than to the interests of 7 million mothers. Once again it is a matter of Socialist priorities. What we are hearing from her is the well-known phrase, "The dogs may bark—the caravan rolls on". The right hon. Lady does not mean to change.
The right hon Lady has already had 18 months in office in which to prepare for child endowment. That should be ample time, considering that Germany carried through this reform in six months. Admittedly the Germans ran into some snags, but what we have to conclude is that the Secretary of State's heart is not in it. Mothers do not rank high in her scale of priorities. Or have we to say that she is simply not a suitable person to run a large administrative staff?
Let us judge her by the fruits of her administration. All credit to her, she increased family allowances, but not by as much as the rise in the cost of living since the last increase. There was cheeseparing there. Consider the maternity grant. It is still £25, in spite of the other upratings announced last month. It is so long ago that it was fixed at that figure that I cannot ascertain even when it was.
We have still not debated the Finer Report. When we had the rather heartbreaking lobby by the Gingerbread mothers here last week, where was the right hon. Lady? She had other concerns. She was too embarrassed to meet them. She put one of her Ministers in instead. I do not think that that was a good gesture on her part. If she had heard what those mothers had to say it might have softened her attitude somewhat. British mothers are tired of being

taken for granted and being left behind because militant trade unionists have got control of the Government machine. A year is a long time in the life of an under-fed child. Can we not, even at this stage, expect from the right hon. Lady a commitment to do something at once? Or does the House have to sit back and bear with her in her heartlessness and ineptitude?

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: As is so often the case in our social service debates, we are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys William) for enabling us to begin the debate with one of the key issues that has concerned the House throughout the development of the Government's child endowment scheme. The Government have reneged on their original intention to introduce this benefit by April 1976 and are now seeking to delay it by a further year. They will not commit themselves because there are further amendments giving them the opportunity to delay until 1977.
This dispute between us is not just a question of sheer administrative practicality or convenience. It is a question of political will and social priorities and has great significance for the families affected. As our debates have gone on about child endowment, the background efforts have made the issue of the date of the introduction of the benefit much more important. It is more important now than it was at the time of Second Reading. Even then there was a big enough controversy. We now know what the economic background facing these families is likely to be for the next 12 months, when in other circumstances which no one can foresee, they will need these benefits as soon as possible.
It is disgraceful to delay. April 1976 is the date pin-pointed by the amendment. It is fair to predict that between now and then we shall see the Government, if they have the courage of their convictions stated last week, going through an attempt to reduce living standards in the national interest. If inflation, which is racing ahead of wage increases, is to be brought to an end we shall have to go through a period of severe restraint. Incomes are unlikely to keep pace with the inflation which is in the pipeline as a result of last winter's wage and salary


settlements. Those directly affected by the Government's policy will suffer reduced incomes in the next few months. If the Government are determined to hold to their policy, as seemed to be foreshadowed by the Chancellor last week, they will have to be seen to be doing justice to those who are most vulnerable.
10.45 p.m.
Among the most vulnerable families who will need protection are those with numbers of children and with modest incomes. Over the past year or two this group has received no mercy from the miners and other militant trade union leaders who have forced up their living standards and their incomes. This group needs help from the Government. Potentially help is in the Bill if we can get it to them by April 1976.
This Bill is the only part of the Conservative tax credit scheme which the Government will agree to bring forward. By combining ultimately child allowances for tax and the old family allowances, it channels help to the families who most need it who did not get the maximum benefit from child allowances in the past. It channels it to the first child and gets near to honouring the Conservative election commitment to give help to the first child, and, most importantly, it channels it through the mother. It transfers purchasing power from the wage packet of the husband to the handbag of the mother in a way which helps families to cope with their budget in what may well be a difficult winter.
I accept that, given that is the nature of the help, we must if possible get it to the families by April 1976. Part of the economic package is that it is possible that the scheme will then have to be introduced at neutral cost as far as public expenditure is concerned. It seemed clear from the illustrative figures which the Secretary of State gave on Second Reading that about 1·94p a week would be envisaged for the benefit if, when introduced, the Government decided that neutral cost was the proper way to approach the matter. But even introducing it on that basis by April 1976, with a nil increase in public expenditure, would speed up the giving of help to the advantage of those families below the taxpaying level who perhaps will be

adversely affected by the Government's proposed wage restraints.
The Government originally intended to introduce the benefit in April 1976, but most hon. Members are probably familiar with the ridiculous tragi-comedy in which the Government have backed down from April 1976 and are now left in the hopeless position of trying to defend April 1977 as a starting date. The essential background—the one which the Secretary of State will most vehemently try to deny—lies in the decisions about social priorities in relation to the election commitments which the Government made in internal discussions earlier this year.
There were extremely well informed reports in The Guardian and in New Society to the effect that a Cabinet committee—called, somewhat ironically, the Anti-Poverty Committee—had decided that it was not possible to pursue this election commitment to go ahead with the child benefit scheme by April 1976 because there were no funds available, and it was the Secretary of State's intention—though how she intends to give effect to it in the present circumstances I do not know—to have public funds available when she introduced her scheme. It seemed that the Government wanted to spend additional public money when introducing the new scheme because they were extremely worried about taking money from the pay packets of men and adding it to the housekeeping money of women. The right hon. Lady no doubt felt that she and her right hon. and hon. Friends might have difficulty in facing their political friends—the higher paid industrial workers in key industries—if they introduced it with neutral public spending.
However, the Cabinet refused to go ahead with finding the money to authorise the beginning of the scheme in April 1976. As one newspaper pointed out, as a political sop, the Government came up with the idea of the interim benefit for one-parent families. It is a fairly useless political sop because, as Gingerbread pointed out to the Government, it does nothing to help the poorest one-parent families because they will lose it from their supplementary benefits.
There are snags involved in interim benefit for one-parent families. If the


amendment is accepted, so that the scheme is introduced by 1976, the Government will be spared the embarrassment of problems with one-parent families under Clause 16. Everyone will be able to start off on the same footing with the scheme as it was intended that it should operate. However, the Government decided that they could not do that. They said that April 1976 was not an attainable date.
Since that time the Government have tried to find ways to excuse the delay, especially since hon. Members on both sides of the House were impatient that the benefit should be introduced as quickly as possible, although the impatience of Government supporters has thinned in the past weeks. We shall hear how impatient they are in the course of time. Nevertheless, the Government tried to excuse the delay.
The urgency of the problem and the nature of the Government's intentions were revealed for the first time on 29th January during the discussion of the Social Security Benefits Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, leading the debate, put forward the idea of— surprise, surprise—child benefit for the first children of one-parent families, which the Government perversely voted against, but which some months later they decided to reintroduce.
In that debate I canvassed extensively the problem of the delay in introducing the measure. I accused the Government of not intending to stick to their commitment to introduce it by April 1976. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) suggested that possibly some administrative difficulties or problems with the building at Washington were responsible.
The Government had an adequate opportunity to reply, but at that stage they did not have their excuses ready. The Under-Secretary put forward this explanation of why there might be some difficulty in introducing the scheme. He said:
It is unrealistic for Members, on both sides, to believe that a child endowment scheme of this size can be implemented without considerable preparation and without appreciating the considerable difficulties. We are talking of taking on 3 million singleton children. We say that, even before we can entertain claims

from these children, we are talking of major computing programme difficulties, major printing programmes, housing difficulties and staffing problems. I do not suggest that any one of those problems is the cause of delay. But it would be folly for us to start out on a scheme of this nature without ensuring that all those problems were first solved. It is the total of these problems which is one factor influencing my right hon. Friend in making a firmly dated decision on this matter.
I single out the comment:
I do not suggest that any one of those problems is the cause of the delay."[Official Report, 29th January 1975; Vol. 885, c. 457.]
By the time we reached the Second Reading the cat was out of the bag. The Secretary of State's remarks bore no relation to what her Under-Secretary had said earlier. Those who want to refresh their memories of the Secretary of State's remarks will find them recorded in col. 336 the Official Report of 13th May 1975, which contains a passionate explanation that the Secretary of State's best intentions and deepest political wish were to introduce the allowance in April 1976, but that unfortunately there were major administrative problems and other difficulties, including that of high alumina cement, which adversely affected the construction of the temporary office accommodation which it was hoped to occupy in Washington, County Durham. An extraordinary explanation was put forward that the Government's political intentions were frustrated as they could not find a suitable office block. They were defeated by the problem of high alumina cement.
We received a curious invitation to inspect the concrete beam which caused all the trouble and which constituted the spoke in the wheel of the Government's plans. I cannot tell one beam from another. It would not be of much help if I looked at concrete beams in Washington or anywhere else. However, that is not the point. The Government first said that their plans were frustrated first by a strike on the building, secondly by high alumina cement and thirdly because no building was available within 12 or 13 miles of Newcastle on Tyne which would allow the Government, however willing, to move in the computer and get the new scheme going. We have queried that throughout. The Government were in a dilemma as a result of acute political difficulties inside the Cabinet and of having got their spending priorities wrong earlier in the year.
In Committee the new Under-Secretary of State found that on his transfer of duties he had come blundering into this mess that the Government had created, and he was left trying to explain the difficulties of finding office blocks in the North-East. We pressed our case, saying that we were surprised to be told that nowhere in the North-East was there an adequate office block to be found to enable the Government to fulfil their good intentions. Again, the new Under-Secretary of State, with the same honesty that marked his predecessor, said:
As my hon. Friend made clear on Second Reading, we are talking about an accommodation need for 2,200 staff. The extent of the premises is 150,000 square feet. These are substantial buildings. I do not wish to suggest that there are no buildings in Newcastle which could accommodate that number, but at the same time it has to be in that area, near the existing facilities. But whether one can acquire premises at very short notice on this scale at precisely the time when they are wanted is quite another question. I think that he "—
meaning me"—
is being a little unfair in not taking account of our difficulties."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 26th June 1975; c. 273.]
The hon. Gentleman did not wish to suggest that there were no buildings in Newcastle of that kind. We do not believe that the Government have made any serious attempt to discover such buildings. The variations in what has been said by the Government throughout confirm that suspicion, however vehemently the Secretary of State may say in a few moments that high alumina cement and strikes in the North-East are to blame.
I quote in my support what the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mrs. Hayman) said in the Second Reading debate. What she said so upset the Government that she is not in her place tonight. She was not allowed to put her views in Committee because she had been so naughty as to say a few critical words about the Government in the Second Reading debate. She has given up in despair. She said:
It is not only a matter of resources, not only a matter of staff, not only a matter of buildings; it is also a matter of political will, and it is the political will nationally, it is the political will of this House, apart from the handful of hon. Members who are here tonight, that it is necessary to mobilise if we are to see the benefit brought in earlier, as I hope

we shall."—[Official Report, 13th May 1975; Vol. 892, c. 352.]
The result of making remarks like that on social security matters nowadays is that an hon. Member on the Government side never gets inside a Standing Committee.
The political will of the Government was illustrated in Committee, with five payroll Members and 14 back benchers, one of whom had no interest in the subject and one of whom—I see him in his place—spoke movingly for but voted against his own amendment and with the Government. The political will of the Government manifested itself mainly in attempting to iron out all opposition or dissent on their own side to the commencement date.
The Government's political will is further illustrated by the Report stage of this important Bill being taken at 10 o'clock at night, suggesting that the Bill is being relegated to second place in the Government's priorities. Every attempt is being made by the Government to minimise debate and to so avoid embarrassing questions and, presumably, to try to persuade people outside that there are administrative reasons which Parliament is not able to reopen. We wish to reopen this matter. We think that there has been a serious breach of faith.
The Government preference on this subject, as on many other aspects of social security policy, is to produce public relations type Bills embracing apparently good intentions but extremely thin on action and producing very little in practice for the people about whom the House should be most concerned. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington said, the important matter is the social priority of the mothers who are waiting for help and wondering what next winter will be like, given the economic crisis, the nature of the measures which the Government will have to take and the need for the Bill to give some relief to hard-pressed families. That is the burden of the case.
11.0 p.m.
I should like to make clear how reasonable and conciliatory we are. We expect the Government at last to abandon this nonsense of guiding office development to the North-East, but should they seek to reject the amendment in that


respect, we have tabled Amendments Nos. 15 and 18 to give them the opportunity to write in their own stated dates. No. 15 suggests the date of April 1976 for one-parent families and No. 18 suggests 1977 for the whole scheme.
I am sure that the Government will not resist these amendments, because they have used these dates throughout as a defence, and even I would not dare to suspect them of just fobbing off the House. I am sure that they would not come back with the lame excuse that they did not have the necessary powers, or that the building was not ready, or that perhaps another part of it had fallen down, or that the carpets were not ready, or something else of that sort, so that they could claim that it was not possible to proceed in 1976 or 1977. But in case the Treasury succeeds in encouraging the Department to take that view, we have provided the opportunity for the Department to put its own date into the Bill.
I cannot see why the Government should resist that. I cannot visualise what arguments the right hon. Lady could use for not putting her own stated dates into the Bill to make clear the Government's good faith and to make clear that something will happen in April 1976 or 1977.
However, if the Government's lackadaisical approach to this important social priority and their complete indifference to the plight of families result in their resisting these amendments, they will be thoroughly revealed. I trust that the right hon. Lady will surprise us and go beyond her own dates and see the virtue in what was urged upon her by the Opposition and her hon. Friends on Second Reading until they were purged from our debates.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mrs. Barbara Castle): The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) started his speech by saying that he was deeply grateful to his hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams) for having brought this matter before the House. It is rather surprising if that is so that the hon. Member did not begin by co-ordinating his arguments with those of his hon. Friend. The whole case of the hon. Member for Kensington was that we could not possibly resist Amendment No. 1 because it did not involve any extra cost. If that is the

argument, the whole pretence of the hon. Member for Rushcliffe, that somehow we are reneging on a commitment, because the selfish miners are not prepared to meet the extra cost, falls lamentably to the ground Perhaps we may have a co-ordinated case put by the Opposition before we are expected to answer it.
In fact, as the whole House knows, the political slapstick to which we have been listening for the past 25 minutes is designed exclusively to hide the Opposition's political nakedness. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe referred to what he called my acute political difficulties. I would rather have my alleged difficulties than the hypocrisy of the hon. Member and the record of his Government in family support. His Government—and he knows it—won the 1970 election by promising the Child Poverty Action Group to increase family allowances immediately.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: rose—

Mrs. Castle: No, I will not give way. His Government then reneged on a solemn election manifesto commitment, whereas in this Bill we are solemnly fulfilling ours within a matter of only 18 months, and fulfilling it in exactly the terms in which we advanced it. The hon. Member knows that he is talking manufactured rubbish when he talks about our going back on a commitment as to the date. It was not until Second Reading that we were in a position to put a date before the House, and the hon. Member knows that he cannot produce an earlier date on which we have reneged.
I come to what he called his party's election manifesto commitments. I should be delighted if the House would return to a study of them. Both in February 1974 and October 1974—and October 1974 particularly—the Conservative Party was cleverly and wisely cautious about the details of the commitment. It told us that its great tax credit scheme—we all know that operated today it would cost £3,000 million—would have to be introduced by stages.
Further, there was no commitment to introduce the great child credit element of the scheme even in the lifetime of this Parliament but when economic circumstances were right. Nobody will pretend that economic circumstances at this


moment are particularly favourable. Only the other day the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) was calling for public expenditure cuts of over £4½ billion. Nobody believes for a moment that if the Conservatives had been in Government they would have introduced the child credit element of their tax credit scheme, but we have done so by—

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The right hon. Lady said that nowhere had she declared herself to be in favour of an earlier date. I have had time to look up the debate on Second Reading. The right hon. Lady is recorded as saying:
It was certainly our original intention that the benefit would start in April next"—[Official Report, 13th May 1975; Vol. 892, c. 336.]
I understand that she also made that declaration in her letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams). My hon. Friend had earlier written to the right hon. Lady on behalf of the Family Allowance Movement.

Mrs. Castle: Nothing that the hon. Gentleman has quoted reverses what I was saying earlier. I was saying that the Government at no stage had given a commitment to a date. The first announcement of a date was on Second Reading. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for vindicating what I said. It is true that when we announced the date we said that we would have preferred to introduce it earlier, but it had never been a question of our having said in the election campaign "Vote Labour and the child benefit scheme will be introduced in April 1976". In fact, we said "Vote Labour and you will get the child benefit scheme during the lifetime of this Parliament". It has been introduced not only within the lifetime of this Parliament but within 18 months of the return of the Government.
In the interim we have already had the increase in family allowance benefits. The Conservatives failed to increase the family allowance not in 18 months, my heavens, but since the previous Conservative Government had done so in 1956. One would have thought that a modicum of humility would have kept Conservative Members in more muted terms. Of course, we all know the tactic of going

into the attack when one has a weak case.
Conservative Members know that their record is such that they have to be extremely defensive. The House knows that the arguments and the amendments that have once again been put forward are either inoperable or unnecessary. We all know that their purpose is to give Conservative Members the opportunity of calling me a liar in parliamentary terms. They may wrap up then allegations in the sort of language that we have heard tonight—"unconvinced" and the rest of it—but the reliability they are calling in question is not the political will of the Government but the word of our experts, who report to us that completion of the provision for the introduction of the child benefit scheme is impossible before April 1977. It is impossible to achieve this by April 1976. It is more likely to be April 1977 because when tax is involved it must be introduced at the beginning of the tax year.
When the hon. Member for Kensington is driven to quote the words of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales in his previous incarnation in my Department and, by twisting the emphasis, tries to make out that he was repudiating our case, he must be in a difficult posiltion. What my hon Friend was rightly saying was that the delay is due not to any one of these problems but to a complex of them. Of course it is not just one item that causes difficulty. A building would not be a problem if it were not for the fact that we have a highly centralised system of family allowances—a system quite different from the German system. We have weekly cash payment books. Payments are not made into bank accounts, as happens in 80 per cent. of cases in Germany. We have a different system.
The number of officials involved—and the hon. Member for Kensington has been told this before—is not 700 or 7,000 additional officials. The exact figure is 2,200 additional officials. Quite naturally those officials have to be housed. The hon. Member for Kensington becomes somewhat pathetic when he says, "Look at this heartless woman who puts the needs of 7,000 officials against that of 7 million mothers.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: rose—

Mrs. Castle: No, I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman. Having heard the hon. Gentleman's speech, I would not give way to him if he were the last person left in the House of Commons. After that speech, he does not deserve the parliamentary courtesies.
One cannot have 2,200 officials roosting like hens in a barn. They have to have an office.
Let us remember that this is a provision which has been planned by two Governments. The planning of these buildings began, before we came into office, in 1974. It began on such a scale and location because our predecessors in government knew that if there were to be a child benefit scheme, it would require buildings of this size near to and in the environs of Newcastle, and nowhere else.
The additional work arising from the payment of child benefit with the benefit to the first child, including 7 million families, could not be done within the existing resources available to my Department. They know that any new centre would have to be reasonably close to Newcastle to link with the computer facilities there and with the existing family allowances branch. The new Emerson building in the city was commissioned by the Property Services Agency to be ready for occupation in July 1975 and to house 2,200 staff necessary to action the claims from 3 million "single families" in time for the scheme to begin in April 1976. It is true that this involves accommodation of about 150,000 sq. ft. That is about half the size of the vast Alexander Fleming complex in which, for my sins, I work.
11.15 p.m.
Against the possibility of delay in the building programme, fall-back arrangements were made to use temporarily another large building in Washington New Town, called Durham House, which was already under construction for other purposes by Property Services Agency. By March 1974 it was clear that the Emerson Building programme had slipped. As no other suitable buildings were available which could be made ready on time—and that is the factor; one cannot just walk into any building; it has to be

adapted for its purpose—Durham House, the fall-back premises, became our mainstay for the take-on operation.
It was in September 1974 that we learned, as many other Departments learned about the public buildings under their control, that high-alumina cement had been used for some components in its construction. Therefore, work had virtually to stop while the need for precautionary measures was considered. The hon. Gentleman had better make un his mind. In the Standing Committee he said that he understood the argument about high-alumina cement. With the evidence available, he would find it difficult not to understand it. Yet he returns to the subject today and accuses us of having dreamed up all the excuses we could.
Of course, my Department made an urgent re-examination of the alternative ways of achieving the 1976 start. But no alternative ways were available on time because in order to have an April 1976 start the staff have to be in the building setting the whole thing up by the previous summer. Local offices under our system, unlike the German system, could not have issued the order books. As for buildings in other areas, Newcastle had to be ruled out—

Sir B. Rhys Williams: rose—

Mrs. Castle: No, I will not give way to the hon. Member for Kensington—not after that speech.
I tell the House advisedly—and here I am pledging not only my word but the word of the staff who have been examining this problem on my behalf—that in the autumn of 1974 Property Services Agency made a thorough search in the Newcastle area for suitable alternative buildings. The few large ones in that area which would have been available and might otherwise have been suitable could not have been made ready on time. Therefore, the delay to Durham House made it impossible to start the scheme in 1976.
I say, therefore, that if the House were to pass this amendment, it would prove to be inoperable. I can assure the House that staff are not going to camp in the streets in order to obey the whim of an irrational Parliament. They have to be housed in conditions in which the necessary work can be done. But I can


give the House this assurance: for the 1977 start the original Emerson Buildings are to be used. I have checked and rechecked, and I am told that no further slippage has taken place, but, as a precaution against further delay, other buildings in the Newcastle area are being obtained. Therefore, the Government are introducing this long overdue change at the earliest practicable moment.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The right hon. Lady seems to have finished her history of the problem, which is the fourth version we have had so far. If she is trying to tell us that it was known in the autumn of 1974 that no alternative accommodation was available when a search was made by Property Services Agency, why was the House told none of this on 29th January of this year on the Social Security Benefits Bill when this question of delay was considered and the problems at Washington were expressly canvassed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young)? Why were Ministers totally silent in January 1975 if the right hon. Lady is saying now that they knew then as a matter of fact that it was impossible to get this scheme into operation by April 1976?

Mrs. Castle: The House has always been told this. The hon. Member for Kensington knows perfectly well that when I received a deputation from him and a mothers' action group many months ago I explained to him then the absolute physical difficulties we were experiencing in the Washington situation and the slippage in the building programme which had occurred there. Of course we have never hidden this. We have been constantly canvassing it. It was not until we had exhausted all the possible alternatives that we were forced to face the facts as I have put them to the House.
I repeat that we have gone back to the Emerson building, which we expect to be ready for the 1977 start. I repeat that Amendments Nos. 1 and 17 should not be supported, because they are inoperable and it is obviously absurd for the House to pass amendments which it knows, if it is honest, cannot be carried out. As for Amendment No. 15 which seeks to fix the date for the introduction of interim benefit, hon. Members opposite, and certainly the hon. Member for

Rushcliffe, know full well that it is the long-accepted practice in social security legislation—a practice faithfully observed by the Tories when they were in office—that the principal legislation lays down the benefit structure and the operational dates are set out in a commencement order and not in the Bill itself.
The hon. Member said that he would be very interested to know my reasons for not accepting the amendment embodying the date in the principal Bill. My answer is that my reasons are those that his own Government have always advanced, namely, keeping in line with the common practice of successive Governments that the date is put in the commencement order and not in the Bill itself and that there is no reason whatsoever for changing that practice at present. We are following that pattern.
We are committed to introducing the interim benefit by April 1976. In the same way, the Chancellor and I have told the House that child benefit itself will begin in April 1977. I assure hon. Members that the 1977 start is not at risk because of building difficulties, because it does not depend on the use of Durham House in which the high alumina cement was discovered. Therefore, I suggest to the House that we drop the charade of the phony wrath of hon. Members opposite, face the facts, and get on with this great step forward in this reforming structure Bill.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: As the right hon. Lady did not allow me any opportunity of intervening, I am afraid I have to ask the leave of the House to say a few more words on my amendment. We all waited to hear her make some clear commitment as to when the interim benefit would start and how much it would be, and when the child benefit would start and how much that would be. If her position and that of her Government is so clear, why was she not able to take advantage of this amendment to spell it out and tell the House instead of forcing us to divide?
In spite of the Secretary of State's histrionics, ill-temper and governess-like approach to me, I could not help thinking that she had a very poor case. What would someone like Peggy Herbison or Eleanor Rathbone have done in a similar position? She would have turned to her colleagues in Cabinet and insisted


that mothers got the assistance they need in the current inflationary situation. It is no good looking to the Secretary of State to be a champion of mothers. She is interested in women who are members of trade unions—she is prepared to fight for them—but mothers embarrass her and for them she is not prepared to fight.
The British Civil Service is capable of meeting this challenge if it is properly led, but it is not getting the necessary leadership from the Secretary of State and her Ministers. When there was the emergency over petrol rationing, there was speedy enough action. Indeed, when family allowances were first introduced, we did not have stories of difficulties in finding office space and staff. There was the will to bring in family allowances and it was done.
The House has had to suffer from the right hon. Lady the sort of display seen at a small company's shareholders meeting when an inefficient old managing director is trying to explain things to angry shareholders who know they are going to vote to get rid of him. The Government benches have been empty during the debate. Labour Members are as uninterested in mothers as is the Secretary of State. But they will vote in strength and that will prove their social priorities.
What we are getting from the Secretary of State is ineffective leadership and smugness. She is quite happy with what she

is doing. She says the amendment would be inoperable and says she would not carry it into effect, but the amendment would not be inoperable under better leadership. Does the whole of her staff believe that this reform is impossible or are there not some who know that it could be done? She talks about the difficulties in our system and refers to the German system, but if the German system is better than ours, surely she could introduce something like it? Then we could also have the regular upratings that will be necessary if this Government stay in office.

The Secretary of State looks back over a long political career and feels that she has performed many services for women, but she is not performing a service for 7 million mothers by standing in the way of their receiving the benefits they need and deserve. The best service she could perform now for families is to resign. If we on these benches cannot convince her that she should resign, there will soon be people on her own side who will.

She is going to lead her party to vote in strength against introducing this benefit at the earliest possible date. I hope that my hon. and right hon. Friends will support my amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 98, Noes 109

Division No. 277.]
AYES
[11.30 p.m.


Arnold, Tom
Holland, Philip
Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby)


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Hooson, Emlyn
Pardoe, John


Beith, A. J.
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Penhaligon, David


Benyon, W.
Hurd, Douglas
Percival, Ian


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Prior, Rt Hon James


Bottomley, Peter
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Raison, Timothy


Brittan, Leon
Kilfedder, James
Rathbone, Tim


Brotherton, Michael
Knox, David
Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Lawrence, Ivan
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Chalker, Mrs Lynda
Lawson, Nigel
Reid, George


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Le Marchant, Spencer
Renton, Rt Hon Sir D. (Hunts)


Cockcroft, John
Lester, Jim (Beeston)
Renton, Tim (Mid-Sussex)


Cordle, John H.
Luce, Richard
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Crawford, Douglas
McCrindle, Robert
Ridley, Hon Nicholas


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James
Macfarlane, Neil
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW)


Eden, Rt Hon Sir John
MacGregor, John
Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Mather, Carol
Sainsbury, Tim


Evans, Gwyntor (Carmarthen)
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)


Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Mayhew, Patrick
Shelton, William (Streatham)


Eyre, Reginald
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Shepherd, Colin


Fairgrieve, Russell
Miller, Hal (Bromsgrove)
Sims, Roger


Farr, John
Miscampbell, Norman
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Fisher, Sir Nigel
Montgomery, Fergus
Spicer, Michael (S Worcester)


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Morgan, Geraint
Stanbrook, Ivor


Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd)
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Admiral
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Steen, Anthony (Wavertree)


Grylls, Michael
Neave, Alrey
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)


Henderson, Douglas
Neubert, Michael
Stradling Thomas, J.




Thompson, George
Wainwright, Richard (Coins V)
Winterton, Nicholas


Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)
Wall, Patrick
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Townsend, Cyril D.
Watt, Hamish



Tugendhat, Christopher
Weatherill, Bernard
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Vaughan, Dr. Gerard
Welsh, Andrew
Mr. Fred Silvester and


Viggers, Peter
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)
Mr. Anthony Berry.




NOES


Anderson, Donald
George, Bruce
Park George


Armstrong, Ernest
Gilbert, Dr John
Parry, Robert


Ashley, Jack
Grant, George (Morpeth)
Pavitt, Laurie


Atkins, Ronald (Preston N)
Grocott, Bruce
Pendry, Tom


Atkinson, Norman
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Phipps, Dr Colin


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Harper, Joseph
Price, William (Rugby)


Bates, Alf
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Radice, Giles


Bean, R. E.
Hatton, Frank
Richardson, Miss Jo


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Hooley, Frank
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Bidwell, Sydney
Horam, John
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Bishop, E. S.
Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)
Roderick, Caerwyn


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Boardman, H.
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Rooker, J. W.


Buchanan, Richard
Jones, Alec (Rhondda)
Rose, Paul B.


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Sedgemore, Brian


Cartwright, John
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Sillars, James


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Mabon, Dr J. Dickson
Silverman, Julius


Clemitson, Ivor
McCartney, Hugh
Skinner, Dennis


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
McElhone, Frank
Small, William


Cohen, Stanley
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Snape, Peter


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Spearing, Nigel


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Mackintosh, John P.
Stallard, A. W.


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Madden, Max
Stoddart, David


Cryer, Bob
Marks, Kenneth
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Tierney, Sydney


Dempsey, James
Meacher, Michael
Tinn, James


Doig, Peter
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Tomlinson, John


Dormand, J. D.
Millan, Bruce
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Miller, Mrs. Millie (llford N)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Dunnett, Jack
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Ward, Michael


Edge, Geoff
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
White, Frank R. (Bury)


English, Michael
Noble, Mike
Young, David (Bolton E)


Ennals, David
Oakes, Gordon



Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Fernyhough, Rt Hon E.
Ovenden, John
Mr. John Ellis and


Flannery, Martin
Owen, Dr David
Mr. Donald Coleman.


Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Palmer, Arthur

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 2

MEANING OF "CHILD"

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 11, at end insert:
'or
(c) he is over the age of nineteen years and no child tax allowance is being allowed in respect of him and he is receiving full-time education by attendance at a recognised educational establishment'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): With this we may take Amendment No. 3, in page 2, line 22 at end insert:
if a child tax allowance is being allowed in respect of him'.

Mr. Clarke: These amendments concern the position of the parents of students and others in full-time higher

education because, as the Bill stands, there is the possibility of a weakening in their financial position when the child benefit schemes comes in unless we have understood the Government's assurance in Committee, and presumably if we have they are prepared to allow it to be written into the Bill in the way that the amendments suggest.
The situation with which we are concerned is that of parents who have children going on to full-time higher education. At the moment we have a system whereby a parental contribution is payable on a means-tested basis towards maintenance grants for students. In Committee we were reassured that Clause 4(1) is designed to give powers to a future Government to deal with the ending of the parental contribution system. Those of us who do not speak for our party on education affairs were pleased to give that a welcome. Meanwhile we are waiting for the report of the


inter-departmental committee in which the Government are considering the possibilities of a fresh look at this question of the parental contribution.
While we wait it is extremely expensive for some parents, particularly those with more than one child receiving full-time higher education. We all know the hardship caused to students if the parental contribution is not forthcoming when the parent is assessed as liable. Every year there is a fresh crop of problems. The current one affects fathers who find that the Government's recent change in the position of married women students is creating an annoying problem. These fathers are liable to contribute for a married woman who may be of mature years.
At the moment parents who make this contribution get some relief through child tax allowances. These allowances are maintained throughout the period during which the dependent child is receiving higher education. It was always proposed that our tax credit scheme, when it was introduced, would have had the same rule and that the child credit would have been clearly payable to parents throughout the time that the child received higher education. With this structure in the Bill, child tax allowances will ultimately be phased out. They will be replaced entirely by the child benefit, payable for all children. The Government have never been clear about the phasing-out of child tax allowances and for how long we shall have a system of residual child tax allowances for some children.
The hint we received on Second Reading was that the Government proposed that child benefit would replace child tax allowances and family allowances immediately in the case of children under the age of 11 but that there would be residual child tax allowances for children aged 11 and over. When we look at the Bill, we see that that is not explicitly set out. It is said that child benefit is not payable to a child over the age of 19 even if he is receiving higher education. Under the Bill a child up to the age of 19 will receive the benefit. It seems that when children leave school and begin higher education, many will find that their parents will receive child benefit

but in some cases it will stop half-way through courses. That seems a curious situation.
The situation that most concerns us is the possibility that parents might lose the small assistance of the child tax allowances they receive towards their contribution without any compensatory child benefit. If the parental contribution is abolished we do not object to child benefit being stopped. The Government have paved the way for that in Clause 4 (1) and we hope that that will come into effect. We are worried about the interim for those people with children aged over 19 in full-time education. Our amendment arose out of the Minister's statement in Committee on 17th June. I intervened after he touched on this matter and said:
The Minister said that the child tax allowances will continue for students over 19 which at first is undoubtedly so, but he cannot get over the fact that the intention is steadily to remove and replace them. Is he giving an assurance that child tax allowances will not be removed in the case of students until there is some change in the grant provision for them? Is that what he intended to imply? Is he really assuring us that the child tax allowances for children over 19 in full-time higher education will not be eroded unless and until there is some change in the arrangements?
The Minister's reply was:
Yes—I can answer that in one word."— [Official Report, Standing Committee A, 17th June, 1975, c. 24.]
11.45 p.m.
We took that as a firm commitment that the child tax allowances payable to parents would be preserved and would not be removed or modified unless there were a change in the grant provision, everybody clearly understanding a change in the grant provision as meaning the ending of the parental contribution for maintenance grants. Although I accept the Minister of State's assurance, and have never had cause to doubt for a moment any assurance he has given, in order to guard against any successor forgetting the assurance we seek by our amendments to write into the Bill the Government's clearly expressed intention because we agree with it and think that the legislation should enshrine it.
The amendment would make the child benefit payable to a student over 19 years of age receiving full-time education if no child tax allowance was being allowed


for him. It is important to write the provision into the Bill and not to rely on the right hon. Gentleman's assurance. In the present difficult circumstances of public expenditure, we cannot help fearing that residual child tax allowances for children over 19, particularly for students will be a temptation to the Treasury when it is looking for possible cuts in public expenditure. We already fear that one consequence of the Bill, depending how the Government set about matters in 1977, will be that child benefit for some families will be paid for by other taxpayers with families—in other words, that cuts will be made in the tax relief given to taxpayers with families to pay for the benefit for families below tax-paying level. This is a group which we want to protect from that possibility.
No Government should discourage any student from continuing full-time education. The problems of the parental contribution to maintenance grants are a serious discouragement. The child tax allowance is a valuable relief to parents and encourages them to make proper contributions.
Therefore, it would protect present and future Ministers if we were to write into the Bill a statutory obligation making the child benefit payable to parents if at any time the child tax allowance is taken away for students over 19 years of age receiving full-time higher education. The amendment plainly would cost nothing compared with the Government's present intentions. It has no public expenditure implications, and, as it is an expression of the Government's good intention which we applaud, we trust that the Government will accept it and will write their commitment into the Bill.

The Minister of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Mr. Brian O'Malley): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke and to the official Opposition for tabling the amendments because they give me the opportunity to repeat in categorical and clear terms the assurance which I gave in Committee, namely, that there is no intention to withdraw child tax allowances for students over the age of 19 unless and until there is a change in the general arrangements for student support.

I therefore hope that the House will take the amendment as a repetition of the assurance which I gave in Committee.
However, I cannot advise the House to accept the amendment. The hon. Gentleman pointed out, quite properly, the unsatisfactory situations which can exist for students—for example, students whose parents are receiving the benefits of child tax allowances and they perhaps get nothing out of it. The child tax allowances are of assistance to parents whose sons or daughters are students aged over 19 and therefore are not receiving the family allowance. For that reason, it would be wrong to get rid of the child tax allowances in respect of students over 19, or indeed of the residual tax allowances in respect of students under 19, until we had moved from a purely flat rate system of child benefits, which implies the possibility of residual child tax allowances remaining until they are subsumed by a further development of the child benefit scheme.
This is the question which we must answer. Is the proper way to deal with the problems of students over the age of 19 by means of a child benefit payable through the parents? We must bear in mind that the age of majority was recently reduced from 21 to 18. Students moving away from home—many of them for the first time—have always broken away from close family ties and lead independent lives. That has been increasingly the trend of modern life in the 1960s and 1970s.
It is clear that we should establish a more satisfactory system of student support than that which we now have, with the disadvantages inherent in a system of family allowances payable up to the age of 19 and a child's tax allowance over the age of 19. However, I do not think that we should perpetuate those arrangements. When young men and women reach the age of 19 and over we are no longer dealing with children.
There is no difference between the aims of hon. Members on both sides of the House. However, it would be wrong to write into a Bill dealing with child benefits financial provisions for people over the age of majority, who would not wish to be regarded as children or as dependants of their parents. The object of the Government survey is to examine the


question of student support and to look for a better structure of support.
I give the assurance that it is not our intention to withdraw the CTAs for students over the age of 19 until there is a change in the general arrangements. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel that that assurance is satisfactory, and that it is not desirable to put young men and women over the age of 19—many of whom are grown up and are living away from their parents' homes—in a child benefit structure. A separate set of arrangements is necessary to meet their requirements and perhaps to meet their dignity in view of the circumstances and attitudes of the 1970s.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his amendment—which has nevertheless served a useful purpose in allowing this brief discussion.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I am satisfied with the Minister's assurances—I am somewhat disarmed that he should repeat them categorically—that there is no intention that anyone within this category will be worse off.
I am surprised at the Minister's reasons for not writing the benefit into the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the age of majority and to the fact that as these people were adults it was inappropriate to pay child benefit for them to their parents. Why are 18-year-olds included for child benefit in the Bill? They are above the age of majority. They are adult. If the residual child tax allowances are to be retained in the case of a young person of 18 in full-time education, the parent will be better off for a year as he will receive the child benefit and the tax allowance. Therefore, parents whose children start courses when they are young will to that extent be better off. On the child's nineteenth birthday the parents will lose the child benefit but continue to have the tax allowance.

Mr. O'Malley: Once we have developed a system of child benefits which entirely subsumes the child tax allowance there will be no question of a student under the age of 19 being better off or worse off. A standard child benefit will be payable.
The hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that the age in the current legislation on family allowances is 19. It is sensible to have a similar provision in the Bill at this stage. I say entirely without commitment that it would clearly be a proper matter for consideration in the longer-term future whether the age of 19 is appropriate. The Government take the view at this stage that it is. It is inherited from the family allowance system. I fully accept that the matter needs to be taken into consideration at some stage.

Mr. Clarke: I accept in the long term that it will be eliminated, but in the short term an anomaly is being created of extra benefits for students who start studying in their eighteenth year.
That leaves one other query. The Minister gave a categorical assurance that tax allowances would continue in the foreseeable future for students over 19 in full-time education. The Government have never spelt out what will be the residual child tax allowances when the scheme comes into force. I am not criticising here but simply asking for information.
In the Second Reading debate the Government hinted that the first step might be the ending of the child tax allowance for children under 11, with some residual tax allowances for children over 11. It might be relevant in later debates on the differentials of benefit according to age. I hope that at some stage in our discussion one or other Minister will enlighten us on that and make clear what these residual child tax allowances will consist of in the first steps towards bringing in the full child benefit scheme which will ultimately lead to the total elimination of all child tax allowances. I look forward to further information.
What is already in the Bill gives rise to anomalies. I am not entirely sure that it would do great harm to write the amendments in the Bill, but, in view of the assurance which the Minister gave in such categorical terms that we can rest assured that no parents will be worse off, I am satisfied. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5

RATE OF CHILD BENEFIT

Sir George Young: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 3, line 33, at end insert:
except that that rate shall not be lower than the combined net value to a standard rate taxpayer of any family allowance and child tax allowance that it replaces'.
I find it somewhat paradoxical that the House should be dealing with the Child Benefit Bill at a time when any self-respecting child, or indeed parent, is fast asleep, as are, I suspect—looking at the Government benches—many self-respecting Members of Parliament.
The Opposition make no apology for pressing again on the Government Amendment No. 4, which seeks to ensure that the Bill will actually benefit the children and the families. The amendment is more necessary now than was the similar amendment we moved in Committee because the Chancellor of the Exchequer at this very moment may be contemplating economies in the Secretary of State's budget. If the figure which the amendment aims at is not written into the Bill the consequence could be that children will actually be disbenefited and be worse off as a result of its passage.
It is important to consider the clause and the amendment in the context of the policy for families and children. The greatest asset which the country has is its children, and we must invest in children for the sake of their future and ours. Most of the investment in children is made by parents within the families, and it depends on the resources available to parents for meeting the needs of their children.
The family is the major influence determining the quality of the next generation and the family environment is dependent on the income of the parents. It is being increasingly recognised that the mammoth investment that society makes in the education of children may be frustrated by the inadequate home environment of those very same children. The quality of the next generation is dependent not only on the schools but on the homes. It is well known that a child does not do well at school if it comes from a difficult family situation.

It is very difficult to separate education policy from family policy.
12 midnight.
So the family environment is determined partly by family income, and this is where child benefits come in. Rearing children is a job that requires time, trouble and patience, as I am sure many hon. Members will testify, but also fairly large sums of money, and expenditure by parents has an investment content for society as a whole. The quality of the next generation is a responsibility of families with dependent children in this generation.
These family responsibilities are at any one time very unevenly spread over the number of households. Three-quarters of all dependent children are in nearly 22 per cent. of United Kingdom households and nearly half are in fewer than 13 per cent. and more than 40 per cent. of the next generation come from a mere 9 per cent. of households. It is these families whom the Bill is trying to help, and the responsibility for bringing up the next generation is borne by a relatively few shoulders.
What is very worrying is that family units that contain dependent children generally enjoy a much lower standard of living than families without dependent children. As a country we have failed to compensate families for the drop in their incomes which follows the arrival of children. The danger if the amend. ment or something like it is not carried is that there will be a further deterioration in the incomes of families with dependent children.
The Opposition say that the Bill is an opportunity not only to tackle poverty in families but to ensure that families can achieve a standard of living comparable with that of non-parents with similar incomes. No attempt was made to refute the proposition that I put in Committee, namely, that families have had a raw deal with taxation over the past 15 years and that there is no case for singling out families with children for extra taxation, as is implied in the Bill might happen were the amendment not to be carried.
Taking 1960–61 as a base year and equating tax allowances in that year with 100; in 1975–76, the single person's tax


allowances had risen from 100 to 482 and the married person's allowance to 398. The child tax allowance, by contrast, had risen by roughly half as much, For the over-16s it had risen to 203 for the 11–16s it had risen to 220; and for the 0–11s it had risen to 240. For the past 15 years there has been a redistribution of income away from families with children to the rest of the community. If the Government are proposing to load on to the shoulders of families with children the whole cost of the attack on poverty contained in the Bill, the Opposition must resist.
Not only has the relative position of these families changed, but they are entering the tax bracket much earlier than they did a few years ago. In reply to a Parliamentary Question on 17th June, I was told that a married man with three children under 11 would not commence paying tax at the standard rate in 1960–61 until his earnings reached 154·7 per cent. of average earnings. The percentage for the current year is 55·9. So the full burdens of tax are now being felt at much lower average earnings.
This is the context in which we approach Clause 5 and the amendment, which seeks to ensure that the introduction of the Bill is not an occasion that results in the further deterioration of the position of families relative to other taxpayers. After the debate in Committee, the claims which the Government had made about the beneficial effect of the Bill were looking very tatty indeed. If the Government are unable to accept the amendment, our worst fears about their intentions will be confirmed.
Perhaps I may remind the Under-Secretary of those claims. In her Press release dated 28th April the right hon. Lady said:
The Government's aim in the Child Benefit Bill is to improve and simplify the system of family benefits…
In Second Reading the right hon. Lady said:
The scheme is, of course, potentially expensive, and the rate and thus the extent of the improvement—I emphasise 'improvement'—will have to be settled in the light of the economic prospect at the time."—[Official Report, 13th May 1975; Vol. 892, c. 335.]
The House is entitled to know what the right hon. Lady meant by "improve-

ment". If one consequence could be that families with children paying the standard rate of tax will be worse off, it seems to be a modest target. Of course, the Bill is described as an improvement. It is claimed that the result of the Bill will be that families will be better oil than they would have been without it.
I join forces with the right hon. Lady and say that as the Bill extends support to half a million families who have insufficient income to benefit from the tax allowances and 220,000 families who have insufficient income to make full use of the allowance, it is for them an improvement. My right hon. and hon. Friends go wholeheartedly along with that step. We were committed through the tax credit scheme to extending support to those families and to other groups of the population who would have benefited from the tax credit scheme. However, channelling these extra resources to these families involves public expenditure. This is where the right hon. Lady's problems begin.
Where is the money to come from to help the families I have just mentioned? At the moment the right hon. Lady has no money with which to bring in the Bill. I have quoted to her on many occasions the section from the White Paper which makes it clear that there is no provision in the five-year estimates for the Bill. In page 112 of Command 5879 it is said:
The figures in Table 2.12 and elsewhere in this White Paper do not allow for the cost of a child benefit scheme for all children, including the first in each family, to which the Government is committed…. Additional expenditure on this scheme would be a charge on the contingency reserve.
Since the White Paper was published the Chancellor has announced that there are to be cuts of £1,000 million in public expenditure. Since the Budget there have been further changes in the economic climate. The prospects of the right hon. Lady obtaining additional funds to implement the scheme are virtually nil.
I propose to assume for the purpose of argument that no additional funds are available to the right hon. Lady to bring in her Bill. If that is the case, where does the money come from to help poorer families? Where is the money coming from to help families with one child who at the moment do not receive family allowance? The answer is clear. 'The


money is to come from other families, and in particular families with three and more children. The rate at which child benefit is fixed if the scheme is neutral will mean that many families will be worse off. The families worst off will be those with larger families. That is why we are entitled to ask what the right hon. Lady meant by using the word "improvement" when she described the Bill on Second Reading. If the Bill makes families with three children paying tax at the standard rate worse off, the claim made on behalf of the Bill will be rightly rejected by those families.
The amendment that we tabled in Committee was criticised because it might have been unduly favourable to those who pay tax at the higher rates. The hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) and even the right hon. Lady drew attention to that. The amendment that we table on Report overcomes that objection by making it clear that we seek to safeguard the position of the standard rate taxpayer. In the course of our debate in Committee it appeared that the cost of the new benefits being introduced at the illustrative figure was about £170 million. That was the figure which the Under-Secretary of State supplied.
If no other provision is made, the extra taxation will fall on the shoulders of taxpayers with families and no one else. This goes against a fundamental principle which I quoted in Committee and which I think the Under-Secretary of State accepted. It was set out in the evidence of the Tax Credit Study Group to the Select Committee on Tax Credits. It said:
If it is desired to achieve a given amount o; vertical redistribution by giving help to families with lower incomes, the cost of this should be shared equitably among those who have higher incomes. There could be no justification for placing the burden of helping poorer families with children wholly on those more well-to-do families who have children …
Later the Committee said:
In other words, it would be wrong to make a redistribution in favour of poorer families the occasion for a relative worsening of the position of better-off families with children as against equally well-off single people or married couples without children
In the debate the Under-Secretary of State seemed to accept the logic of the argument. He conceded that it would be inequitable to restrict the cost of the measures—measures which we all welcome—to one section of the tax-paying

population. He put forward two arguments for resisting our amendment in Committee. One was that if one undertook to leave the higher income tax payer no worse off, the level of benefit would have to be very high. We concede that point, and our amendment seeks only to safeguard the position of the standard rate taxpayer. It is worth remembering that a married man with three children pays tax at standard rate when he earns over half the average earnings. That is the wage earner whose position we seek to protect.
Secondly, he said that it was impossible to give the assurances we sought because questions of public expenditure were involved, delicate negotiations had to be conducted and, as a result, no commitment could be given about the level of benefit.
If that is the case, that argument flatly contradicts what the Secretary of Stae said on Second Reading when she described the Bill as an improvement, and in Committee when she said that the Government were producing the Bill
against a background of systematic advance over the whole field of provision for children…"—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 24th June 1975, c. 159.]
How can the Government make these extravagant claims about their Bill if, in their next breath, they say that they are very sorry but one consequence of the Bill could be that a man earning about £35, with three children, could find himself worse off after the legislation is brought in? If we are to safeguard the position of that man, they must accept our amendment or something like it.
I appreciate that the Minister is in a difficult position. He says that the whole of the structure plan will lead to a more rationalised system by which the Government will find a better way of channelling resources to those who need them. But a consequence of the new structure is that additional funds go to one sector of the population—those with insufficient income to claim child tax allowances.
In the absence of additional public expenditure, those funds can come only from other sectors of the tax force who happen to have children. Those taxpayers have already had a raw deal over the past 15 years. Their tax allowances have not been reviewed as generously as have the allowances of single people or


of married people without children. It is a gross inequity to load the cost of the scheme on to those people.
Surely the Government should have thought out the implications of this structure, or at least when introducing such a scheme should have ensured that they had adequate funds. The object of the amendment is to try to protect the situation of such a person and to bring home the consequences of the Government's shortsightedness in trying to introduce a structure after they have run out of funds in their Department.

12.15 a.m.

Mr. Ian Stewart: I wish to speak in support of my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) who moved the amendment with great cogency. There were others in Committee who endeavoured to obtain some more specific comments from the Government about the financial implications of the commitment. I wish to thank the Minister for the letters which he sent me on a number of points.
With any structure plan there is inevitably a difficulty in that we have to consider abstract principles of a system which will be assessed properly only when the rates and details are eventually declared. I accept that situation. Nevertheless we need to know a little more about the specific comments which have already been made by the Secretary of State and other Ministers in Committee.
It is a little unfair, I agree, to ask the Under-Secretary of State, who was carrying the Industry Bill single-handed on his shoulders—if he will excuse the mixed metaphor—at the time when this Bill had its Second Reading, but since he has shown himself to be assiduous in answering some of my questions, perhaps I may elaborate and add some precision to one or two of those on which I am still not satisfied.
The point goes back to this remark of the Secretary of State on 13th May when she said:
The scheme is, of course, potentially expensive, and the rate and thus the extent of the improvement—I emphasise 'improvement' —will have to be settled in the light of the economic prospects at the time"—[Official Report, 13th May 1975; Vol. 892, c. 335.]
The use of the word "improvement" was not an accidental insertion into those

remarks. It was a deliberate, carefully thought-out remark, because she said "I emphasise 'improvement'", and she related improvement to her discussion of the rate at which the scheme would be brought in. Therefore, we are in some difficulty.
I tried to obtain from the Under-Secretary earlier some indication of what this improvement would be and to whom it would apply. I received a rather curious answer. I must hasten to say that the Under-Secretary delivered it in the most civil manner, but when one reads it in print it strikes one as a little odd. He said:
I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the precise assurance as to the impact on any particular standard rate taxpayer. In no way do I think that is a statement he ought to be concerned about."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 26th June 1975, c. 266.]
It seems to me to go to the heart of the question that we are discussing. If we are to have an improvement, it must be an improvement for someone or for some body of people. If it is an improvement on rate, the improvement cannot relate to the fact that this is being extended to a different group of people by adding in a benefit for the first child. Therefore, if this improvement is on the matter of rate, which group of people will receive some benefit because of this improvement?
Secretaries of State do not normally make carefully thought-out remarks which they then emphasise by repeating them unless they have specific grounds for doing so. Before the Secretary of State made that remark about the improvement which was related to the rate, she must clearly have considered precisely what she meant by that statement. One does not make such statements if one is in a position of authority, unless one has thought out the consequences and analysed carefully who will be the beneficiaries of that improvement.
It occurred to many of us that these improvements might be related to other aspects of the scheme. It might be something to do with differential benefits or age-related differentials, or it might have same regard to the retention of some residual child tax allowances. But, as the Secretary of State put it, it related to the rate. I accept that in the Second Reading the figure of £1·94 was purely illustrative.


We accept that we cannot take that as a commitment. It was purely illustrative of what the rate would be if one did a direct conversion of child tax allowances plus family allowances and allocated the child benefit in a simple arithmetical way. But that does not give the improvement.
The question that we ask the Government again tonight—because repeatedly in Committee we were not given any clear answer to this point—is what does that improvement mean? The Under-Secretary was kind enough to state clearly in his latest letter:
I fear it is impossible to give any precise quantifications or assurances at this stage,"—
This was in relation to the improvement position referred to by the Secretary of State on Second Reading—
since there is no decision yet on the rate of benefit at introduction.
But surely in order to make a statement about an improvement, one must first of all decide irrevocably on a minimum rate, otherwise one cannot make a statement like that.
If the position is that in changed circumstances or on reflection the Government have decided not to commit themselves to any improvement, they should be honest and say so. Is this a weaker or an abandoned commitment; or have we repeatedly failed to understand to what the improvement relates? I hope that the Under-Secretary will be able to enlighten us further.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Meacher): I recognise that the purpose of the amendment is simply to ensure that there is a minimum rate of benefit which is precisely quantified to ensure, as the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) said, that there should be no family and no children worse off. I agree with the hon. Gentleman's opening remarks about the importance of protecting family finance, particularly in current economic difficulties, in view of the importance of the quality of the family environment in terms of the bringing up of children.
There can be no question that families are to be singled out for extra taxation as a result of the Bill. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, as I indicated in Committee, that in terms of equity, if

there are extra resources to be made available, of course single persons and married couples without children should pay their proper share towards making provision for such extra resources.
Having said that, I should make it clear also that there is a combination of factors in determining the rate of which the hon. Gentleman is fully aware but to the implications of which I should draw attention. First, the child benefit, when it is introduced, is to be a flat-rate benefit and the same amount is payable to every child in the family. Secondly, it is the case at present that family allowances are not paid for the first child in a family, nor are child tax allowances paid below the tax threshold. This means that the flat-rate benefit required to ensure that the standard rate taxpayer is not worse off does not have to be fixed at a level which compensates both for child tax allowance and family allowances for every child.
Perhaps I could make this clear in terms of very simple rounded figures. If the first child were to receive benefit of £1 and the second and third children were to receive a benefit of £2 each, the flat rate per child needed to ensure that the family was no worse off would not be £2, which would be the implication of the amendment, but £1·67.
Perhaps I could make this clear in terms of the actual finances which apply. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State gave illustrative figures on Second Reading—which have already been quoted in the debate—about the level of child benefit at neutral cost. It would be based on the lowest rate of child tax allowance—namely, that applicable to children under the age of 11, whch is £240 a year, residual child tax allowances also being retained for the older groups. This would fix the level of child benefits, as hon. Members recognise, at £1·94.
If we were to make the same assumptions about a family in the same situation, the amendment would require a level of child benefit of £2·24 per week. That is slightly different from the figure which was given to the hon. Gentleman in answer to a Parliamentary Question on 23rd June and which he quoted, because he there asked that no family should be worse off, whereas the point of the amendment is that no child would be


worse off. The figure works out at £2·24 a week.
The net cost of this would again be slightly more than the hon. Gentleman's figure of £170 million, for the same reason. It would in fact be £190 million. The additional cost of this is merely a reflection of, first, paying the net value of family allowances to a standard rate taxpayer for the first child in every family, which is 62½p a week, and, secondly, paying to families below the tax threshold the value to a standard rate taxpayer of the child tax allowance for a child under 11. which is £1·61½ per week.
That is the position the amendment would create. The hon. Gentleman was wise enough to make clear that he recognised—though this has been said somewhat sarcastically in Committee—that this is a structure Bill. It is too early for us to be certain what the rate will be when it is introduced. I can say that the Government will not be satisfied with anything less than the maximum amount consistent with the overall public expenditure position at the time. In the current rather unusual position, we cannot make predictions of the public sector borrowing requirement or the level of public expenditure nearly two years ahead. As far as is consistent with the public expenditure position, we intend to achieve an improvement in the neutral cost position. I cannot say at what level the benefit will be introduced.
To the extent that we manage to bring about an improvement for each child over and above the neutral cost level, we shall be moving towards the amendment. The benefit will include children who are not covered by family allowances or child tax allowances. Accepting the amendment would necessitate a substantial increase in public expenditure. I cannot accept the amendment, but I hope that we shall be able to move some way towards it in future.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The debate has drawn attention to the difficulties of discussing a structure Bill—and I do not use that phrase sarcastically—in the absence of any idea of what the rate of benefit will be when it is finally introduced in 1977. The debate has also revealed the terrible position Ministers are in, and the Under-Secretary has had to use the most

tortuous phrases to encourage us to have hope while making it clear that he was not committing the Government to anything.
We welcome the way he accepted from the start our case that it would not be right for this new help for poorer families to be financed by taking away solely from the better-off who also have families. This is a fear we have had throughout the Bill's proceedings, but the Under-Secretary has now said that, if one is to improve the position of families as proposed, single people must pay their share.
Is he accepting, by that that, although neutral cost is important for illustrative purposes, it is scarcely conceivable that the Government will in fact introduce at neutral cost if it is to be of help in any way for those people below the taxpaying level? It would follow from this situation that tax rates for everyone would be raised to produce the finance to produce a somewhat higher figure than the £1·94 used in Second Reading.
12.30 a.m.
If it is proposed to finance any help for families in need, the expression that single people must pay their share must imply a raising of tax rates for everyone if there are public expenditure difficulties. That leads to the main point of concern of what was meant by the Secretary of State when she used the careful phrase which referred to "improvement" being embodied in the Bill. It was in explaining what that might involve that the Under-Secretary got into most difficulties. If the right hon. Lady is to use such phrases, she must follow them un in the House. When she gave a Press conference upon publication of the Bill she said something which has deepened the mystery. in The Times on Tuesday 29th April under the byline of Pat Healy, the respected social services correspondent of that paper, was a story which, referring to the level of rates, read:
Mrs. Castle, Secretary of State for Social Services, declined yesterday to say how much mothers will get, but said families would be left no worse off than under the present system of family allowances for second and subsequent children and child tax allowances for all children.
That implies that the benefits will be at least £2 a child. At present, a family with three children under 11 receives a net benefit of just over £6 a week.


I read the second paragraph as being a comment by the correspondent, but there seems to be a direct quotation from the Secretary of State that families would be left no worse off than they are with family allowances in respect of second and subsequent children and child tax allowances for all children.
The implication from the Secretary of State's statement is that £2·03 will be the operative rate, and I can only assume that the Secretary of State said that at the Press conference and that this is her understanding of what the benefit for each child will be. It is therefore curious that no provision was made for that in the Government's published estimates on public expenditure. If the Under-Secretary can intervene again we should like him to explain what the Secretary of State has in mind. Is what she said at the Press conference still operable?
We might be in some difficulty in working out the future position of standard rate tax payers in view of the complication of child tax allowances. The Minister said that it was explained on Second Reading that the situation was based on the assumption that child tax allowances would be retained in the case of children over the age of 11. It would simplify matters if he would spell out that this is the Government's intention. As a first step, will the child tax allowances be paid in respect of children below 11, and is it expected that there will be a residual tax allowance for children over 11? That would have some bearing on the position of some families because for the standard rate taxpayer child allowances are more valuable in the case of older children.

Sir George Young: By leave of the House may I say that the Under-Secretary is in a terrible difficulty? In the face of all the arguments we put forward he must have felt that he was back in the Standing Committee examining the Industry Bill because he was left alone totally abandoned by his hon. and right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench. He made one significant comment. He said that it is not his intention to single out families for taxation in connection with this Bill. If that is the case, if the burden is to be borne by other sections of the community, the Bill cannot be

neutral. There must be some injection of public expenditure from somewhere else. This means that the estimates in the White Paper have apparently been thrown overboard.
The Minister was unable to give any undertaking that any section of the community at any income level would be better off as a result of the Bill. In introducing the amendment I mentioned the case of the married man on £35 a week with three children and I said that he could be worse off as a result of the Bill if it were neutral, and the Minister is not able to hold out much hope for people in that position when the Bill becomes law.
We do not question the motives of the Government in introducing the Bill, but they have committed themselves to a structure the consequences of which they have not foreseen. They have not learned the lesson of the Select Committee on tax credits which found it was essential to pitch the level of the cash benefit at a fairly high level to ensure that no one was worse off. The Government are going ahead with the structure without having made sure that the necessary funds, which appear to be £190 million, are available.
The Minister asked the House to believe that funds which were not available in February, because they were not included in the five-year forecast, and which will not be available when the Chancellor of the Exchequer has finished with his announcements in the next few days, will somehow be available between now and 1977. The hon. Gentleman is asking the House to believe a lot if he expects us to think that funds which had no priority in the Government's latest statement on finance will be found within the next 18 months. The Minister's speech was hedged around with conditional clauses and qualifications, and families who are following the debate will be disappointed that he was unable to give an assurance that they will be better off as a result of the Bill.
We leave the Minister in his embarrassment. We do not propose to press the matter to a Division. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Sir George Young: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 3, line 33, at end insert
'and different rates shall be prescribed from 5th April 1979 for—

(a) a child aged under 5 years;
(b) a child aged under 16 years and over six years;
(c) a child aged more than 15 years'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): With this we are to take the following amendments:

No. 6, in page 3, line 34, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.

No. 7, in page 3, line 36, at end insert
'as from a day to be appointed by the Secretary of State'.

Sir George Young: It is a matter of some surprise to my hon. Friends and myself that we find it necessary to press the question of age-related benefits again on Report. In the evidence to the Select Committee on tax credits and on Second Reading there was unanimity that child benefit should be related to the age of the child.
My hon. Friends and I were dismayed at the negative performance of the Government Front Bench in Committee and at the agile somersaults performed by Government back benchers. The hon. Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) said:
… it is essential to build into the Bill at this stage the principle of age-related benefit.
A few minutes later the hon. Gentleman cast his vote in such a way as to ensure that no such thing ever happened.
The hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) said:
…we believe that some element of reality and certainty should be injected into the clause."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A; 19th June 1975, cc. 81–87.]
The hon. Gentleman developed his case which he described as unanswerable, and likewise when it came to a Division he voted fearlessly with the Government against age-related benefits. The performance of the Government Front Bench, while it at least had the merit of consistency, was equally discouraging, and I shall return to that in a moment.
The case for relating the amount of benefit to the age of the child is overwhelming and I do not propose to spend long on it as the Government have made clear that in principle they accept it.

Clause 5(2) gives the Government specific powers to bring in age-related benefit and it is unlikely that they would seek such powers if they did not intend to use them.
Supplementary benefits have six different levels for children, rising according to age, and this is logical as the cost of bringing up a child is closely correlated with its age.
The tax allowances also reflect this, through the three rates of child tax allowances, again rising with age. Evidence to the Select Committee which dealt with tax credits also supported age-related benefits and no voice I know of has been raised to say that we should not have them. The need for Amendment No. 5 arises from the Government's reluctance to build age-related benefits into the scheme at its inception and from our own fears that if they are not built in at an early date they may never be introduced.
We were also dismayed that in Committee the Government gave no indication of their thinking on the details of the scheme. Members on the Committee did a certain amount of research into the subject and we were assisted by "Equivalent Scales for Children" which is not an educational toy, as some hon. Members may think, but a paper of monumental complexity by Mr. Maclements, an econometrician who talks not in sentences but equations and whose name is engraved on our memories even if his work is not engraved on our minds.
The important points to be resolved in Committee concerned the number of categories there should be, which ages should be included in them and what the relative benefits were to be. Various amendments reflected various views. The Committee looked to the Government to share with it their thinking on these important subjects, which have been examined by the Department since 1946 and on which the Department is known to have done a lot of work.
We were grievously disappointed. When the Minister replied he relieved himself of a party political speech dealing with inflation in the developed countries, the lobbying activities of outside organisations and the Treasury's borrowing requirement. A few minutes from the end of his speech, as reported in column


99, he addressed himself to age-related benefits. He readily conceded the principle. He told us how long he had believed in it and said not a word about the central matters raised in the debate, namely the number of categories there should be and the relativities between them.
The Department has the information because it pays age-related benefits on account of the children of those on supplementary benefit. The excuse the Minister gave in Committee of needing more information was totally unconvincing, as the Committee sank beneath the weight of Mr. Maclement's calculations. In not offering any constructive criticism of our amendments the Minister failed to display his normal courtesy to the Committee. Simply to say, as he did that he would get round to it at some point in the future, was no excuse for not addressing himself to the positive points put in the amendments, the principles behind which he so readily conceded.
The reason why the Minister was reluctant to move became clear by accident after an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). The Minister clearly believed that our amendment involved a sizeable increase in public expenditure. He was quickly disabused of this by my hon. Friend. The Minister then said:
So, what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, which is certainly not what would be acceptable to my hon. Friends, is that, assuming one has a total, global sum to distribute at the outset ֵ one should have a lower base level of child benefit in respect of some people."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 19th June, 1975; c. 95.]
This is precisely what age-related child benefit is—a lower base level of child benefit in respect of some people and a higher base level in respect of others.
When the Minister said that he accepted the principle of age-related benefits he inevitably accepted that some people will be worse off because they have younger children and others will be better off because they have older children. If it is believed that the support which Governments give to families should be related to the age of children it inevitably means altering the existing pattern of benefits, which are not based on that principle.
We readily concede the point made by the Minister in Committee that if we introduce age-related structures at the inception of the scheme and have no extra funds, we shall make a few families worse off than under a non-age-related scheme. We believe that the price is worth paying to get the structure right.
The picture is not nearly as black as the Minister painted it in Committee when he said that many people would be far worse off than they would otherwise have been. Those with only one child under live who would stand to gain least from an age-related structure will gain anyway as the Bill gives them child benefit for the only child, whereas family allowances did not cover them. Second, those families with more than one child will, in the majority of cases, have some children over five who will be benefiting from a higher rate. Third, any loss suffered by a family in the initial years is compensated for in later years as the child grows up. Over the operation of the scheme there is no loss to families but instead a considerable benefit because they get the money when they need it.
12.45 a.m.
The Minister mentioned as another reason for delaying introducing age-related benefit the possibility of introducing other refinements at the same time, namely, a higher rate for the first child and having different rates for very large families. The Opposition accept that there is a case for both these refinements, but they are separate from age-related benefits, which are already a feature of our legislation. Adequate research has been done already and their introduction should not be delayed while work is done on other matters not connected with the issue.
On Standing Committee A over the years we have come to recognise one argument as absolutely irrefutable, namely, the Minister's "technical reasons" argument, which he develops at length. For technical reasons, we are told, age-related benefits cannot be introduced in 1977 when the scheme starts and will have to wait until 1979. This has to do with the programming of the computer, and we accept, reluctantly, this mechanical constraint. Our amendment refers to 1979 as the year of introduction of age-related benefits.
Therefore, we believe that the Government have not shown the determination that they should have shown. They concede the principle. We are giving them four years in which to do any sums which need to be done and to programme their computer. This is adequate time. If the Government resist because the transition to age-related benefits involves a redistribution of income from families with younger children to families with older children, they will never introduce child benefits.
We hope that the Government will accept the case pressed on them by Lord Kaldor, Professor Brian Abel Smith and the Women's National Advisory Committee of the Conservative Party, whose advice they ignore at their peril, and will announce that age-related child benefits will be introduced by 1979, though it will be a Conservative Government who have the pleasure of implementing them in that year.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I find the comments of the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) odd, as I found them odd in Committee. He suggests that the case for age-related benefits is overwhelming and puts a category in the amendment. In Committee he suggested a different category. I am puzzled about what would happen about the five-year-old child, because the categories he has picked out are those under five and those over six up to 16. I do not believe that there is an overwhelming case for saying that the category should be under five, five to 16 and over 16, but I believe that there is a strong case for saying that there should be age-related benefits.
It emerged in Committee that there was still a great deal of work to be done on deciding exactly where the boundaries should be drawn and how much emphasis should be placed on such factors as the amount to be paid for the first child. The Department made out a case showing that the child under five years of age costs much less than the child of 16 or 17. But we have other conflicting evidence suggesting that the children who live in most poverty are young children and that perhaps because the wife's earning capacity ceases with the birth of the children or because the family may not have accumulated many resources they have greatest need.
There is therefore a reasonable case for the Government carrying out more research into these aspects, first, to decide what weighting should be given to the first child and then to decide how many categories are appropriate. I hope that we shall have differential rates for different age groups and possibly for the first child. In particular, I urge the Government to consider Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 which take their commitment a little further by going from "may" to "shall" and then going on to the appointed day. I should much prefer to see provision made for a particular date, but there is a case for accepting the traditional approach in legislation of this type and, instead of putting the date in the Bill, including it in a later order. The Government should report to the House fairly soon—certainly before April 1977—on the progress, their research and their proposals for differential rates. Having agreed to report to the House, I hope that the Minister will give a commitment of his firm intention to introduce differential rates from April 1979.
I hope that the Government will accept Amendments Nos. 6 and 7.

Mrs. Margaret Bain: My party supports Amendments Nos. 6 and 7.
Older children are more expensive to look after than younger children. I understand that the Government believe in the principle of radical egalitarianism so that working-class parents can give their children the opportunity of a full education beyond the normal school leaving age. This is a category with which I am deeply concerned. Within the State comprehensive education system, grants are available to working-class parents if their children stay on at school after school leaving age. The children queue outside the headmaster's study for forms, after which the children get together and ask how much each was given following that session. As a result, working-class children feel different from the rest of their colleagues at school.
The cost of educating a child who stays on at school after the school leaving age is high. I refer to expenses incurred for school uniform, a blazer and skirt for a young adult, theatre and cinema trips, and visits abroad, which are part of full-time education and which are necessary if


these youngsters are to enjoy equal opportunties.
Many children take part-time jobs delivering milk and newspapers or Saturday jobs. However, it is not easy for them to find employment lucrative enough to compensate parents for the fact that their children are receiving full-time education. It is not always advisable for these children to take employment out of school hours as they fail asleep during school hours and are unable to cope with their lessons. As an ex-teacher I am aware of that problem.
The parents of children who stay on at school after school leaving age, especially working-class parents, should be given as of right an allowance to enable them to afford the education which they desperately seek for their children. Far too often parents have to make a choice between sending their children out to employment or allowing them to continue with full-time education. The age-related benefit is important in that case.

Dr. Keith Hampson: The third report of the Expenditure Committee in 1974 drew the attention of the Minister to that problem. It recommended educational maintenance allowances for the 16–18 year old age group and covered the points mentioned by the hon. Lady. I wonder how often State Departments co-ordinate their activities.

Mrs. Bain: That is similar to the allowances which are available to the children who stay on at school after leaving age and who must stand in the queues outside the headmaster's study and be subjected to questions about their fathers' employment. That leads to a division in society which those of us who believe in radical egalitarianism wish to abolish.
I hope that the Government will assure us that age-related benefits will be available to all people in our society.

Mr. O'Malley: The hon. Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) does not listen to me. His speech was an almost exact repetition of what he said in Committee. I enjoy debates even when there is some repetition, but I am rather less tolerant of repetition at five minutes to one o'clock in the morning. My hon.

Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett) effectively answered the hon. Gentleman, and there is little I need say in addition.
There is strong support on both sides of the House for age-related child benefits. There is a strong case to be made for a system of earnings-related child benefits. Indeed, the very existence of the system from which we are moving to a child benefit structure makes it the easier option in terms of the development of such a structure. When we start a flat-rate system of child benefits we shall be left with residual tax allowances. They are residual because of the age grading in the child tax allowance system. It is, therefore, perhaps the simplest option to move towards age-graded child benefits. There is a strong case to be made for those benefits in their own right, even if age-graded child tax allowances had never existed. There is nothing between the two sides of the House on that matter, and we recognise the strength of the case.
There is also a question to be asked about the position of the first child. On the birth of the first child the mother has to give up her employment and there is a loss of income. In addition, money has to be found for the bringing up of the child. That subject needs to be examined in detail. Secondly, we must consider the position of very large families.
It is essential that public resources should be deployed in the most sensible way. We all recognise that public resources, certainly within the next few years and perhaps permanently, will never match the demands for improvements in benefits and public services generally. The Department is engaged upon a detailed exercise of examining the major areas of child poverty. I am not twitting the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton, when I say that there is already an impressive amount of published literature on this subject, and I recommend examination of that literature to hon. Members on both sides of the House. It indicates that, although there is a strong case for age-related benefits, there is also a case for differential child benefits in other circumstances. It is sensible to pursue the researches that are going on and to decide nearer the time how the then available public resources can be used most beneficially.
I understand the wish of the House for the establishment of the principle of variation in rates of child benefit. All we have said in Clause 5(2) is that different rates may be prescribed.
1.0 a.m.
The Government accept the principle of a variation of rates in child benefit, but varying rates cannot be introduced before 1979. The Government consider it better to await the results of the studies being made within the Department before deciding on the fairest method of distributing among families the resources available for child benefit. However, I am certainly prepared to accept Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North as a means of providing reassurance, not just to the House but to interested organisations outside, that it is not intended to continue with flat-rate benefit indefinitely. On the contrary, the Government intend to develop benefits within the limits available under the public expenditure programme as a flexible means of bringing help to particular categories of families.
The amendments as drafted are defective. I understand that the draftsmen will need to improve on my hon. Friend's efforts. But I am prepared to accept them this evening hoping that my hon. Friend will understand that they will need revision in another place. I will take into account his view about 1979 and consider it before the Bill is considered in another place.
I understand very well the case put by the hon. Lady the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mrs. Bain) about the older children. That is one reason why I made my comments about age grading. I, too, have been a teacher in a working-class area and I know exactly the problems that she mentioned. I hope that the House generally will feel that by accepting my hon. Friend's amendments the Government are showing good intent and that we shall make this variation in rates. But it would not be sensible, in the light of the limited available public resources in the next few years, when we are not certain of the best way in which to use those resources, to write any provision into principal legislation or regulations.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Will the Minister confirm that there is no need for this

Amendment to have any effect on public resources and that his last comment is rather beside the point?

Mr. O'Malley: I know that the hon. Member for Ealing, Acton said that, but, in spite of the hon. Member's denial, my comments remain true. If we begin with a limited amount of public expenditure and divide up the available amount in a different way from the flat-rate system, a number of families will be affected. If one exactly matched the flat-rate benefits now existing, one could devise an age-related scheme in which the hon. Member's comments would be justified, but we are four years away from that. I do not use the public expenditure argument against the hon. Member. I merely say that in terms of priority and using the limited available public resources, we should be sure of our ground before we act in principal legislation of this kind.

Sir George Young: The hour at which we are debating this matter is not the responsibility of the Opposition. I am as anxious to return to my home as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is to return to his.
He said that I had not attended to his remarks. I did not leave the Committee room once. I hung on his every word in Committee and I read all his speeches several times. He accused me of repetition, but what he has said has been a repetition of what he said in Committee, but without the party political piece, which he has kindly spared us at this late hour.
We could have benefited from having the advantage of hearing the Government's views on the amendment in Committee. We could have known whether we had the brackets right and the relativities right. As the Minister refused to comment on them in Committee, we had to table amendments this evening leaving out the relativities and simply stating the ages at which we thought the break points should occur. We do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's argument that more research needs to be done. For many years his Department has been paying out supplementary benefit for a number of children, and paying out at differential rates according to their age. They have the information that they need on which to base age-related child benefits. There


is no need for more research on the subject. Indeed, there is a surfeit of research, as I discovered when I looked into the matter. There are data available from other countries as well as this country. There is no basis for arguing that more work needs to be done.
The right hon. Gentleman wishes to introduce other refinements. We do not object to his other refinements regarding extra benefit for the first child or for larger families, but we do not see that as

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendments made: No. 6, in page 3. line 34, leave out 'may' and insert 'shall'.

No. 7, in page 3, line 36, at end insert
'as from a day to be appointed by the Secretary of State'.—[Mr. Andrew Bennett.]

an excuse for not building into the Bill at the beginning the structure that we seek on age-related benefits. The case is unanswerable. Indeed, the Minister has made no attempt to demolish it. I ask my hon. Friends to support the amendment and to amend the Bill accordingly,

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 21, Noes 104.

Division No. 278.]
AYES
[1.08 a.m.


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Knox, David
Welsh, Andrew


Bottomley, Peter
Le Marchant, Spencer
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Luce, Richard
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Crawford, Douglas
Reid, George



Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen)
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Stradling Thomas, J.
Sir Brandon Rhys Williams and


Eyre, Reginald
Thompson, George
Mr. Jim Lester.


Fairgrieve, Russell
Watt, Hamish



Henderson, Douglas
Weatherill, Bernard





NOES


Armstrong, Ernest
Gilbert, Dr John
Parry, Robert


Ashley, Jack
Grocott, Bruce
Pavitt, Laurie


Atkinson, Norman
Harper, Joseph
Pendry, Tom


Bates, Alf
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Penhaligon, David


Bean, R. E.
Hatton, Frank
Price, William (Rugby)


Beith, A. J.
Hooley, Frank
Radice, Giles


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Hooson, Emlyn
Richardson, Miss Jo


Bidwell, Sydney
Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)


Bishop, E. S.
Jackson, Colin (Brighouse)
Roderick, Caerwyn


Boardman, H.
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Buchanan, Richard
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Rooker, J. W.


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Sedgemore, Brian


Cartwright, John
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Sillars, James


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Skinner, Dennis


Clemitson, Ivor
Loyden, Eddie
Small, William


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
McElhone, Frank
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)


Cohen, Stanley
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Snape, Peter


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Mackenzie, Gregor
Spearing, Nigel


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Mackintosh, John P.
Stallard, A. W.


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Madden, Max
Stoddart, David


Cryer, Bob
Marks, Kenneth
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)


Dempsey, James
Meacher, Michael
Tinn, James


Doig, Peter
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Tomlinson, John


Dormand, J. D.
Millan, Bruce
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Miller, Mrs. Millie (Ilford N)
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)


Dunnett, Jack
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Edge, Geoff
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Ward, Michael


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Noble, Mike
White, Frank R. (Bury)


English, Michael
O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Ovenden, John
Young, David (Bolton E)


Flannery, Martin
Owen, Dr David



Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Palmer, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Freud, Clement
Pardoe, John
Mr. Donald Coleman and


George, Bruce
Park, George
Mr. James Hamilton.

Mrs. Castle: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 3, line 38 at end insert—
'(3A) In the year beginning with the appointed day and in each subsequent year beginning with the anniversary of that day, the Secretary of State shall consider whether the rate or any of the rates then in force under


this section should be increased having regard to the national economic situation as a whole, the general standard of living and such other matters as he thinks relevant.'

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): With this amendment we are to take the following:

No. 9, in page 3, line 41, at end insert:
'(5) The Secretary of State shall within the period of twelve months of the appointed day and in every period of twelve months thereafter, review the prescribed level of child benefits for the purpose of determining whether the benefit has retained its value in relation to the general level of prices obtaining in the United Kingdom.
(6) For the purpose of any such review the Secretary of State shall estimate the general level of prices in such a manner as he thinks fit.
(7) If on any such review the Secretary of State concludes that the child benefit has not retained its value as mentioned above then he shall prepare and lay before each House of Parliament before the expiration period of twelve months referred to in subsection (5) above, the draft of an uprating order increasing the prescribed level of child benefit to such extent as he thinks necessary to restore its value.
(8) If a draft order laid before Parliament in pursuance of the section is approved by resolution of each House, the Secretary of State shall make an order in the form of the draft and such order shall come into effect not later than the period of one month after the expiration of twelve months referred to in subsection (5) above'.

No. 10, in page 3, line 41. at end insert:
'(5) The Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a reappraisal of the purchasing power of child benefit one year after the passing of this Act and thereafter not more than one month after the costs of providing for the essential needs of a family consisting of two parents and two children has changed by more than two per cent. from those at the date of the previous appraisal.
(6) For the purposes of reviews under the foregoing subsection the Secretary of State shall publish, at monthly intervals, a Family Cost Index, being a statement of the average costs of feeding and caring for children in families of different sizes and circumstances, giving data as to the initial outlay at the births of first and subsequent children and of the continuing weekly cost of first and subsequent children at different ages; and in estimating the general level of prices for the purpose of a reappraisal, the Secretary of State shall have regard to the latest Family Cost Index.'.

Mrs. Castle: The House will be aware that in this amendment I am fulfilling a promise that I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr.
Bennett) that I would consider very carefully his request that I should examine the possibility of guaranteeing a review at regular intervals—he suggested probably annually—and the possibility of bringing forward an amendment on Report. I have considered the point which my hon. Friend made to me.
In Standing Committee I made clear that I was opposed to the automatic indexation of this benefit for reasons which I shall explain in a moment. But when my hon. Friend suggested that the Government should, at any rate, go further than the Bill stood and should commit themselves to examine the level of the rates of child benefit every year, I felt that that gave us the best of both worlds. It gave an element of commitment to bear the rates of child benefit in mind while retaining the flexibility which we need in deciding those rates. Having considered his suggestion, I have decided to embody it in this amendment which I am recommending to the House.
This amendment provides for an annual review of child benefits. It means that every year, as Secretary of State, I shall be under a statutory commitment to examine the rates of child benefit and their relevance to the Government's social and economic policies. Of course, the House will be aware of this commitment and the timing of this amendment, and will be able to question the Secretary of State on the outcome of the review This marks yet another advance on the previous practice in this field.
As I pointed out to the Standing Committee, at present neither family allowances nor child tax allowances have any provision at all for uprating. The changes in rates have to be made by amending legislation, and so the provision in Clause 5 before this amendment is introduced is in itself an advance on what went before, because it provides for changes in child benefit rates to be made by Affirmative Resolution. Therefore, Clause 5 puts child benefits on the same footing as supplementary benefit and family income supplement which we know have in practice recently been uprated annually.
The provision that I am making in the amendment, together with the existing provision in the clause, brings the arrangements for review in the Bill into


line with the Conservative Government's own provision for review which they outlined in the Green Paper on their tax credit scheme.
I remind the House of what the Green Paper on tax credits said about upratings and review. I quote from paragraph 119 of Cmnd. 5116:
The scheme would serve as a major new means of family support. But, if it is to succeed in that, the benefits it provides could not he allowed to fall far behind those of the social security schemes. This means that the annual review of national insurance and supplementary benefit levels which the Government now undertakes would have to be matched by regular re-appraisals of tax credit levels.
So the Conservative Government in their Green Paper on tax credits drew a distinction between the automatic up-rating of general national insurance benefits following annual review and the procedure which should be adopted, in their view, for tax credits or child benefits. Is the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) pregnant with intervention?

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. Does she not accept that the words she has quoted were written in 1972 before we made the great change in 1973 over to statutory annual reviews of important benefits? Would she also accept that those words were written when the rate of inflation was hugely below the rate of inflation which we are now suffering, which makes uprating of benefits far more important a matter than it was when those words were written?

Mrs. Castle: The subsequent provision for statutory annual review of national insurance benefits makes no difference to the distinction which the Conservative Government themselves drew in paragraph 119 of the Green Paper on tax credits. They referred specifically to
the annual review of national insurance and supplementary benefit levels".
They carefully did not say that such a review should include the tax credit levels, whether the annual review was statutory or not. They merely said that the tax credit levels should be subject to regular reappraisals as a matching operation—a watching operation, but not a synonymous one.
As for the argument about the level of inflation, as we said repeatedly in Standing Committee—we are very laboriously going over identical ground to that covered in great detail in Standing Committee—we cannot meaningfully plan for a long-term change in social security provision on the assumption that the present exceptional level of inflation will continue. One could not possibly base any pension or child benefit policy on any such assumption because, if inflation continues at such a level, we shall be in an entirely different ball game.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: rose—

Mrs. Castle: It is very late. I must get on.
In introducing its tax credit scheme, the Conservative Government of the time said there was a difference, and they were right. There is a difference between routine national insurance benefits and this new benefit. Indexation of the child benefit is inappropriate. National insurance benefits are major means of support when earning capacity is interrupted, but the child benefit is a tax-free supplement to families whose major source of income is earnings. Clearly maintenance benefits must be capable of moving automatically in line with changes in the cost of living. The child benefit is in a different category.
It is pure hypocrisy for the Opposition to press for a rigid indexation of the new benefit. They rejected it for child benefits under their tax credit scheme. The Government amendment would secure a regular reappraisal of the scheme. A statutory duty is placed on the Secretary of State to examine the rate in the light of the overall social and economic policies.
To go beyond this would be to undermine the flexibility to develop the scheme through age relation or other means pressed strongly by the Opposition in other amendments. The more rigidly benefits are tied to index-linking, the less scope there is for reviewing the structure of the scheme in the light of experience. Interesting views have been expressed about possible future developments and there has been considerable research and discussion.
I think Parliament would wish to be flexible about the emphasis it puts on different factors of family support in future. Parliament will be able to call successive Secretaries of State to account and the amendment would also ensure that, whatever the pressures, the scheme could not be overlooked. It would have to be examined and seriously considered in the light of general developments.
I note with interest that the Opposition has now moved from the demand for six-monthly upratings to annual upratings and I am glad to see that the potent arguments we produced in Committee have at last edged out some of the more extravagant political posturing of the Opposition and that truth and honesty have begun to grow, even in the mind of the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). I hope he will accept the amendment with the gratitude it deserves.

1.30 a.m.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I have never seen a more pathetic put-up job than Government Amendment No. 8. It is a supposed concession to a supposed rebel on the Government benches and is a meaningless piece of verbiage which carries the Government's obligations no further forward than those which would lie on any Government in relation to any benefit. This is offered as a concession to a back bencher who in Committee got most passionate when withdrawing his amendments save when he was voting against them when the Opposition took up the best of his ideas.
These amendments deal with a matter which the Government should have taken more seriously and allowed the House to debate at a more civilised time. I am referring to the requirement for the benefit to be uprated annually in line with other benefits. In Committee we proposed that the period should be six months, and it remains our policy that six-monthly reviews of all benefits is practicable and desirable. That has been our policy since the February 1974 General Election. We have not been converted to the Secretary of State's point of view. We know that the Government felt strongly about and would have to resist strongly the proposal for six-monthly reviews. We therefore decided to try for some move-

ment from them in this debate towards putting the new child benefits into the system of 12-monthly reviews which the Government doggedly defend.
Although the Opposition made a move to eliminate the 12-monthly versus six-monthly argument we do not and will not resile from the principle that the new benefits should be put into the statutory uprating procedure. The Government are statutorily committed to regular reviews of benefits. This results from the 1973 legislation in which we imposed a statutory obligation on governments to uprate pensions and benefits in relation to prices.
When the Government began in October 1974 they strengthened the uprating procedures and went on to make it a statutory obligation to uprate retirement pensions in line with earnings and prices. At that stage it seemed that we all accepted the importance of index-linking of benefits in highly inflationary times such as we now have.
We must be clear about what will happen if we do not index link a benefit at a time when inflation is running at 34 per cent. Not to do so cuts the real value of the benefit and in that circumstance it is hopeless to talk about flexibility. Before October 1974 the Secretary of State took index linking exceeding seriously and one of the points she has put forward is how inadequate it is to provide a benefit which does not embody a regular review procedure and index-linking against inflation.

Mrs. Castle: I have said that there is a distinction between maintenance benefit and this provision.

Mr. Clarke: That distinction was not drawn at the time when the Government were emphasising the importance of index linking in the right hon. Lady's pension provisions. Talking about her pensions Bill and this aspect of it the right hon. Lady said:
Possibly the most vital aspect of the whole Bill is its provisions for fully protecting the value of all pension rights. Each year's earnings during a person's working life will be revalued in line with the general movement of earnings since the year in question, so that his or her eventual pension will fully reflect the improvements in living standards which have taken place."—[Official Report, 19th March 1975; Vol 888, c. 1491.]
When the right hon. Lady was setting out the whole scheme in the original White


Paper she said that inflation proofing was one of the most precious aspects of the new scheme.
Having said that, the right hon. Lady now seeks to draw a distinction between that statutory obligation which she spent her time strengthening in the case of other bnefits and resists adding child benefit to the review procedure even on the modest level of linking it to prices only and not prices and earnings as she has done with long-term benefits and pensions.
In inflationary times child benefit should be linked to prices, and it is wrong to go back to quotations from 1972—made in calmer and less inflationary times—to try to suggest that there are valuable precedents for not inflation-linking child benefits now. The right hon. Lady quotes with approval paragraph 119 of the tax credit Green Paper of 1972. Apparently the right hon. Lady reads great significance into the then Government's declaration, first and most important, that the benefits provided by the tax credit scheme
could not be allowed to fall far behind those of the social security schemes. This means that the annual review of national insurance and supplementary benefit levels which the Government now undertakes would have to be matched by regular reappraisals of tax credit levels.
This evening the right hon. Lady put great emphasis on the difference that is made there between the use of the words "review" and "reappraisal", when it is clear that the purpose of the paragraph is to say that it would be wrong to bring in a tax credit scheme and then allow social security benefits to exceed them and to get out of line with them.
If the right hon. Lady is in doubt because of the 1972 quotation as to precisely what the Opposition are saying, the fact is that since 1972 a lot of water has flowed under the bridge. We have introduced statutory uprating procedures. The minute difference of wording in that tax credit Green Paper will not bear the weight that the right hon. Lady seeks to put on it. Our position is that it is inconceivable that the Government should introduce a child benefit Bill, and claim that they are seriously hoping to benefit families by this structure in the long term, without bringing it into the uprating procedure.
To leave out child benefits would be a retrograde step in the present situation because child allowances for tax purposes are always reviewed and reappraised by any Chancellor of the Exchequer in the course of considering his Budget. Here one gets into the snags when one looks at the previous history. There has not been a statutory obligation in the past, although child tax allowances are always reviewed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer annually, together with all the other matters.
It is true, as my hon. Friend said, that these allowances have historically not kept pace with increases in personal tax allowances of other kinds. I see the Minister nodding in approval. I have no doubt that he agrees with the strictures of my hon. Friend, and I should not wish to see a future Government allow that deterioration in the position to continue. As I have mentioned that family allowance has suffered badly because it has not been in the annual review procedure, I shall inspire the right hon. Lady to reopen the usual exchange about the record of the previous Conservative Government in dealing with family allowance. I counter that by pointing to the introduction of FIS, on which the right hon. Lady now relies heavily.
It is inescapable that the review of family allowance has been inconsistent and the result has been that already, before we come to the present stage, child tax allowance and family allowance which the Bill seeks to replace have fared badly under the non-statutory review procedure. If they are to be excluded from the wide-ranging statutory provisions now with us we are in a serious situation.
If it is the case that the Government will introduce the child credit scheme at neutral cost and if the scheme is not regularly reviewed, there will be a cut in the living standards of families. It will not prove to be of any benefit except to a tiny, most insignificant, section of families. It is for that reason that we think it important to include this in the annual review. If it is not included, if the right hon. Lady has her way, the purchasing value of the new benefits will decline.
Our fear, expressed in Committee, was that if the right hon. Lady insists on this


—and I suspect that it is forced on her by the Treasury—we shall have a lopsided position in her Department whereby various benefits will come within the statutory review procedure simply because they came along at a time when the House was quite happy doing this, while other benefits such as the recently-introduced mobility allowance and the child benefit will not be included. Despite the distinction being drawn by the Secretary of State, these are being left out only because she is under pressure to cut public expenditure.
Given that lopsided position, the constant temptation will be for the statutory reviews to carry on so that retirement pensioners, invalidity pensioners and others will get their benefits inflation-proofed at the expense of families receiving child benefit and those who need the mobility allowance.
This leads to another important question, namely what effect does the new declaration about cash limits on public expenditure have on the prospect of uprating? The Secretary of State must be anxiously considering the implications of that for her Department. We support such cash limits. But at some stage the right hon. Lady has to explain how it will apply in her Department and what views she is being invited to take by her colleagues on the cash benefit side of her Department's spending.
Fortunately for the right hon. Lady the question of the future spending of the health service is beyond the scope of this debate. Cash benefits are very much in point when we look at the statutory review procedure. We want to know how she will apply cash limits to the cash benefit side of her Department, given that she has an obligation in law to carry out an uprating on so many benefits in line with the level of inflation—in some cases related only to prices, in others to prices and earnings.
Is it to be the case that if the Chancellor puts cash limits on the Department and if the rate of inflation runs at a high level, so that benefits which are the subject of a statutory duty take up most of the cash, as a matter of course those benefits left out, such as child benefit, will go to the wall? That is the situation we fear. That is why we trust that when

reviewing public spending commitments the Government will make it clear that cash benefits cannot be an area for great savings and that, now that there are so many benefits in the statutory uprating procedure, such a vital benefit as child credit should be included.
The right hon. Lady announced Amendment No. 8 as a great concession to her hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett). I am sure that the hon. Member shudders every time we mention his name. We ought perhaps to give more credit to him for at least having had the courage to expound some worthwhile sentiments and put some worthwhile cases. The way in which he behaved in supporting the amendments would make a paper tiger look ferocious. I wait to hear the reaction of the hon. Gentleman to Amendment No. 8. No doubt he will express his gratitude for this surprising concession.

Mrs. Castle: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the House how many times he divided the House against his own Government's refusal to include family allowances in their annual statutory uprating?

1.45 a.m.

Mr. Clarke: I am sure that the answer is none. However, I am trying to recall the occasions on which it was raised in the last Parliament and the amendments which were voted against by the hon. Members who tabled them. I am also trying to recall the right hon. Lady's reaction to the introduction of family income supplement against which she voted regularly when in opposition but which she has been making great use of now that she is in government.
The Secretary of State regards this as a concession hard won by her hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North and therefore rises to his defence. She has conceded in Amendment No. 8 that
In the year beginning with the appointed day and in each subsequent year beginning with the anniversary of that day, the Secretary of State shall consider whether the rate or any of the rates then in force under this section should be increased having regard to the national economic situation as a whole, the general standard of living and such other matters as he thinks relevant.
One should hope so, because one cannot conceive that any Secretary of State will


not, as part of the regular annual reappraisal of the expenditure of his or her Department, have
regard to the national economic situation as a whole, the general standard of living and such other matters as he thinks relevant",
which would let him off any hook which might otherwise impale him. It professes good intentions and confirms that future Governments will go through the process of thinking about the level of benefits, just as past Governments have done.
It is nonsense to write in such transparent verbiage into legislation when it carries the matter no further and is meant to be a concession in response to pressure which comes, not only from this side of the House, but from many interested groups outside to have the new benefit put into the uprating procedure.
This is another example of the Government professing good intentions and wearing their heart on their sleeve when it comes to family poverty, but when one examines what they are prepared to do one finds that it takes matters no further. They are prepared to contemplate a situation, in highly inflationary times, in which mothers and families might go to the wall in a crisis because they have no statutory protection but an annual review. Perhaps the Secretary of State will consider withdrawing Amendment No. 8. We cannot see the point of writing it into the Bill. We shall press Amendment No. 9 in the hope that the annual benefit will be extended to cover the new benefits.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: I support Amendment No. 9 and wish to draw attention to my variant of it, Amendment No. 10, and particularly that element of it relating to the Family Cost Index.
We are dealing with the question of uprating. The Secretary of State's view is that uprating is right for beneficiaries of national insurance but not for mothers. What is the distinction between beneficiaries of national insurance and mothers who are responsible for children? The right hon. Lady believes, with the rest of her party, that national insurance beneficiaries, being trade unionists, are likely to be useful people, whereas mothers are a nuisance. Nevertheless, she gave a commitment in Committee to reappraise the situation and thereby secured the withdrawal of an embarrassing amendment which she feared her hon. Friend might

press. Her hon. Friend's conscience does not appear to be an engine strong enough to carry him as far as the Opposition Lobby. However, we agree with much of what he says.
In Committee the Secretary of State gave an undertaking that "regular reappraisals as in the terms of the Green Paper on tax-credit are what we should be aiming at." She made the distinction that child benefit is not a complete subsistence allowance for children. It seems that, as it is not enough anyway, it does not matter if it becomes hopelessly out of date.
Under this Government we must contemplate the possibility of Brazilian style inflation, and mothers will not feel reassured if the Secretary of State says national insurance beneficiaries can feel confident of support but that mothers are a separate issue and must be given different treatment.
Amendment No. 8 was tabled as a result of the commitment given by the Secretary of State. We find in it a restatement of the duties which the Secretary of State should carry out. It would have been better to omit this amendment instead of making this farcical addition to the Bill. Are we to understand that she does not think that a reappraisal of family benefits is part of her job now? How will she carry out this "consideration" in the light of the Government's social and economic policy?
What are the data on which she will found her review? Will she revert to the Retail Price Index? That takes no account of the composition or size of the family, and is defective, as it expresses changes in percentage terms, whereas we must consider the effect on families of rises in price in terms of pence per head per week. Will she depend on the Family Expenditure Survey, with its tiny samples and out-of-date figures which do not show changes in prices but show changes in spending? I do not know whether she will use either of those or whether the Department has data which it is not prepared to make public.
The Secretary of State seems afraid that Members of Parliament or the public might bring pressure to bear if they knew the facts, and therefore she is resisting my suggestion that a regular Family Cost


Index should be published. The compilation of such an index would not require an enormous army of officials and would not be expensive, unlike the Family Expenditure Survey, which requires a great deal of case work. What I am suggesting is a family index based on the assessment of prices in shops, which would be far easier to compile. We went into this matter in Committee. I forced a vote. I secured my purpose, which was that all the Labour Members of Parliament in the Committee should vote against the idea.
Government supporters have shown that they simply do not want to know the facts about families. Although the Secretary of State is laughing, the impression she gives will go to a wider audience than the small number of Members of Parliament present here now.
The Secretary of State said earlier that we could not legislate on the assumption of permanent inflation. Nor can we legislate on the assumption of the permanent inferiority of mothers. Why should mothers be permanent second-rate citizens in the social security system? The Secretary of State is leading members of the Labour Party to make curious and extraordinary blunders today. She will lead them into the Lobby again on the question of uprating. The Government will have their weekly upratings on the income side of the bargain, because income tax and national insurance contributions will rise automatically as inflation proceeds. They are a fixed proportion of earnings. But having brought the money into the kitty, the Government propose to sit on it and not give it out again to families which may be facing serious hardship as a result of rising prices.
Other countries publish the sort of data I ask for and recognise the need for regular upratings. Why do we have to fall still further behind in our social legislation? I support Amendment No. 9. Its weakness is that it calls only for an annual review, whereas I should like to see a half-yearly or even monthly review.

Mrs. Castle: Daily.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: The Secretary of State is in a flippant mood. We are moving towards the need for a daily review with the Brazilian type inflation

which her Government have introduced. In the Weimar Republic the index of the value of money had to be changed every hour just before the final collapse.—[Laughter.] Hon. and right hon. Members may think it amusing, but millions of families do not think it amusing. And there are as many hon. Members on the Government side as on the Opposition side who do not think that we should be debating a matter that concerns millions of people at two o'clock in the morning.
We are proceeding to a vote, and Labour Members will use their votes to keep mothers in a subordinate position as second-rate citizens so far as social benefits are concerned, perpetual supplicants in a world where organised workers rule the roost.

Mr. David Penhaligon: I missed the discussions in Committee because I was not a member of the Committee, but I make no complaint about that. The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) will be pleased to know that I shall lead my party—which is here in some strength—in the Division Lobby with him, but he may not be appreciative of my reasons for doing so.
I shall oppose Government Amendment No. 8 because in times of great economic stringency we should do all we can to save imports, and to import the paper on which to print the amendment would be a manifest waste of money.
I shall support the Opposition Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 because I trust the Government more than I trust the Opposition in these affairs. When the Government say that they will consider the matter annually the chances are that, given a fair wind, they will probably do so generously. When the Opposition were last in government and had a chance to review annually they were consistent in their decision each year that no alteration was required. Therefore I support the Opposition amendments for reverse reasons to those given by the Opposition.
In the short time I have been in the House I have discovered that Opposition Members who pay attention to these matters are much more liberal in their attitude than are the majority of members of the Conservative Party. It is all very well to tell the Government that they must cut public expenditure by


£4,000 million or £5,000 million a year and at the same time say that the Government must save such an annual review as this, thereby committing the Government to further public expenditure. I do not want to reduce public expenditure by £4,000 million or £5,000 million a year, and I certainly do not want cuts in public expenditure at the expense of people who regard child benefit as a valuable part of their income.

2 a.m.

Mr. Ian Stewart: I do not quite know how to follow those remarks, so perhaps I had better revert to the introduction by my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). Like him, I welcome the expression of intent behind Amendment No. 8, but I am a little concerned about some of the right hon. Lady's remarks in explanation.
As she was good enough to listen to me in Committee, she knows of my anxieties about the whole basis of widespread indexation on social security and general welfare benefits. I will not repeat them at length and suffice it to say that social and economic needs change between one group and another in society over a period and if we fossilise the system and build in a strict rigidity, leaving benefits and supports in exactly the same relation to each other, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to adjust in favour of cases that subsequently seem to us to have greater relative need.
But the difficulty is that the right hon. Lady has said that it is important to retain some of this flexibility within the child benefit. Within the child benefit perhaps, but surely not between child benefit and many other social provisions. My anxieties about the problems of general indexation are outweighed by my specific anxiety about the potential recipients of child benefit. After all, there has been a rush of indexation in one form or a another in recent years.
It is well illustrated by what has happened to pensions. In the 1950s, pensions were increased about every three years and in the 1960s about every two years. From 1971 to 1973 they were increased about every year and since then the period has shortened to an average of about nine months.
Gathered together in the Social Security Act are statutory provisions for uprating a whole range of benefits. These provisions differ. There are a number of categories. The most favoured category of long-term benefit has to be reviewed on the basis of not only the cost of living but the level of earnings. A second category, short-term benefits, has to be reviewed in the light of increases in the cost of living. There are the means-tested benefits which, although there is no statutory need to increase them at that rate, need to be increased for technical reasons. Benefits such as rent and rate rebates and the family income supplement have to be linked to the supplementary benefit scheme, or closely to it, or in line with it, because otherwise many people dependent on more than one benefit would not benefit from any such increase. That is the third category.
I understand that there is to be a fourth category which will admittedly include family allowance and one or two other benefits, such as maternity benefit and the death grant, which is to be less favoured than any of the other categories. We should consider the reasons why it is thought unsuitable to give child benefit at least the minimum status of uprating that is applied to those other benefits.
The interim benefit, being introduced prior to child benefit for the heads of one-parent families, will have a gross cost of £39 mililon, but there is a supplementary benefit offset of £16 million, a figure given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget Statement, which is about half the total. When supplementary benefits are replaced by child benefit or the interim benefit, that is surely a maintenance benefit for those pople. I accept that it is not a large number, but it is important.
The Under-Secretary of State gave me same figures, and on the basis of the child benefit scheme costing a total of £1,300 million it seems that about £45 million of the net saving between the gross cost and the net cost would relate to supplementary beneficiaries who have no national insurance benefit. It would seem that they are specific and needy maintenance cases.
There is an argument for saying that a large part of the child benefit scheme is an income increment and not specifically related in the same way as other maintenance benefits, but if the people who will lose supplementary benefit in relation to the recipients of interim benefit or child benefit will in total be £16 million worse off—and by definition they are some of the most needy people who would otherwise look to this benefit to give them greater assistance, but because of the offset they will not be any better off—it would behove the Government to consider carefully the maintenance element in the child benefit scheme.
Because family allowances were supplemented by family income supplement, it

Question accordingly agreed to.

we index only family income supplement and leave family allowance in the cold, and if we transfer the lack of indexation from family allowance to child benefit, as inflation erodes the purchasing power, the element now represented by the family income supplement will continue to benefit. However, it is a matter of concern that that which services the family allowance element should be singled out in this unfortunate way. I hope that the Government will take into account that it is the most needy potential recipients who will be most affected.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 95, Noes 15.

Division No. 279.]
AYES
[2.09 a.m.


Armstrong, Ernest
Fraser, John (Lambeth, N'w'd)
Price, William (Rugby)


Ashley, Jack
George, Bruce
Radice, Giles


Bain, Mrs Margaret
Gilbert, Dr John
Reid, George


Bates, Alf
Grocott, Bruce
Richardson, Miss Jo


Bean, R. E.
Harper, Joseph
Roderick, Caerwyn


Bennett, Andrew (Stockport N)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Rodgers, George (Chorley)


Bidwell, Sydney
Hatton, Frank
Rooker, J. W.


Bishop, E. S.
Henderson, Douglas
Sedgemore, Brian


Buchanan, Richard
Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln)
Sillars, James


Callaghan, Jim (Middleton &amp; P)
Johnson, James (Hull West)
Skinner, Dennis


Cartwright, John
Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Small, William


Castle, Rt Hon Barbara
Leadbitter, Ted
Snape, Peter


Clemitson, Ivor
Lestor, Miss Joan (Eton &amp; Slough)
Spearing, Nigel


Cocks, Michael (Bristol S)
McElhone, Frank
Stallard, A. W.


Cohen, Stanley
MacFarquhar, Roderick
Stoddart, David


Coleman, Donald
Mackenzie, Gregor
Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)


Cook, Robin F. (Edin C)
Mackintosh, John P.
Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW)


Cox, Thomas (Tooting)
Madden, Max
Thompson, George


Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill)
Marks, Kenneth
Tinn, James


Crawford, Douglas
Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)
Tomlinson, John


Cryer, Bob
Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne V)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Meacher, Michael
Walker, Terry (Kingswood)


Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)
Mellish, Rt Hon Robert
Ward, Michael


Dempsey, James
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Watt, Hamish


Doig, Peter
Murray, Rt Hon Ronald King
Welsh, Andrew


Dormand, J. D.
Noble, Mike
White, Frank R. (Bury)


Duffy, A. E. P.
O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian
Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)


Dunnett, Jack
Ovenden, John
Wise, Mrs Audrey


Edge, Geoff
Owen, Dr David
Young, David (Bolton E)


Ellis, John (Brigg &amp; Scun)
Palmer, Arthur



English, Michael
Park, George
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Ewing, Harry (Stirling)
Parry, Robert
Mr. James Hamilton and


Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray)
Pendry, Tom
Mr. Laurie Pavitt.


Flannery, Martin






NOES


Beith, A. J.
Pardoe, John
Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton)


Bottomley, Peter
Penhaligon, David



Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)
Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Fairgrieve, Russell
Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)
Sir Brandon Rhys Williams and


Howells, Geraint (Cardigan)
Stradling Thomas, J.
Mr. Jim Lester.


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon)



Le Marchant, Spencer
Wainwright, Richard (Colne V)

Clause 10

DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION BY INLAND REVENUE

Sir B. Rhys Williams: I beg to move Amendment No. 11, in page 6, line 16, at end insert
'or to a court (when disclosure is requested by that court, in connection with proceedings at which evidence is required as to the income of a person regularly incurring expenditure in respect of a child or responsible for contributing to the cost of providing for a child)'.
We are learning a lot about the social conscience of the Labour Party. I do not know whether hon. Members opposite realise what they are doing to their party's reputation by the way they are voting on this Bill. I advise them not to vote mindlessly against this amendment of mine.
I am sorry to see the Secretary of State leaving the Chamber. She knows it all, of course, and does not need to listen to a humble back bencher.
This amendment raises the important issue of the disclosure by the Inland Revenue of information which it holds, as a result of income tax returns, about circumstances which need to be investigated by the courts. I took the opportunity of mentioning this briefly on Second Reading and also when we debated whether the clause should stand part in Committee, because it struck me immediately, when I saw that the Bill contained a reference to Inland Revenue data, that an extremely important new departure in Inland Revenue practice was contemplated in the Bill.
I believe that the matter is of relatively limited importance as regards the Bill, but I have sought to move an amendment to widen it, nevertheless within the Bill because it is important that we examine the whole rôle of the Inland Revenue in cases of this kind—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Oscar Murton): Order. There are too many independent debates taking place in the House at the moment. The Chair is unable to hear the hon. Member for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams).

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Hon. Members who are interested in this subject, as I am sure that many are, will know that

it was touched on in the Finer Report under the heading
The permissible limits of disclosure
on page 126, paragraphs 4.156 and 4.157. Although there the Finer Report was referring to disclosure in maintenance cases, it is important to realise that what the Finer Committee had to say is also absolutely apposite to what we are considering under the Bill.
I should like to read what the Finer Committee said. It is not many lines. It is, hon. Members opposite will say, damaging to my case, so perhaps they will allow me to read it:
We hold, therefore, that it is of overriding importance to maintain the principle that departments do not inform upon citizens by disclosing for extraneous purposes (save in the most exceptional circumstances) information which the individual is compelled by law to provide for determinate purposes such as direct taxation or national insurance. Once citizens know that information about themselves or their affairs will be passed on by the Board of Inland Revenue to persons and for purposes different from those for which it was supplied in the first instance, temptations to dishonesty and deception will multiply. The functions of the Board of Inland Revenue are to administer taxation, and to impose other unrelated duties upon them will impair their capacity for their main task.
I feel particularly unsympathetic to that last comment.
The Finer Report also refers to national insurance and says:
The community is better served by effective administration of national insurance than by the promotion of an illegal market for uninsured labour that would be the consequence of using insurance cards for the collateral purpose of enforcing court orders.
I have moved the amendment because I totally disagree with the remarks that Finer incorporated in that paragraph. Because the tenor of those paragraphs differs from what we find in the rest of the report, it seems obvious that the ideas contained in those remarks originated with the Inland Revenue. If the Inland Revenue does not want the additional work, that is understandable, but Parliament is here to guide the Inland Revenue as to what it should do. Finer did not want this solution either, because Finer was seeking to make out the case for the guaranteed maintenance allowance, which right hon. and hon. Members opposite have not accepted. It seems that the guaranteed maintenance allowance is not immediately on the way, so perhaps


we should be studying alternatives. If I were to dilate on that topic, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I feel that you would rule me out of order.
Finer did not choose to attack what might be called the Castle of Giant Despair in which the Inland Revenue has this information but will not disclose it, because the Committee thought that a better way could be found. I am not saying that they might not be right, but it does not seem to be happening at once.
I wish to make three points about the purpose of my amendment. First, I think that the Inland Revenue should disclose the information it has to the court but not to the parties to the dispute. I am not talking about disclosure in such a way that the information would soon become public knowledge. I think that the court should be able to ascertain what the actual facts are when frequently it is impossible for the parties to the dispute to do so.
Secondly, tax deductions and national insurance contributions are not for the most part at the taxpayer's or contributor's option but are handled by employers through the mechanism of pay-as-you-earn which takes in between 20 million and 25 million people. So the millions of tax dodging or national insurance dodging Don Juans who are seemingly feared by the Finer Report are mythological. It is not logical to think that the result which the report suggests would follow.
It is the function of the public service to give help to people in real need. Mothers in court cases are often in despair. The Home Office has given a lead and is prepared to disclose addresses and to release information from official sources, but the Inland Revenue has been tardy in following that lead, yet it is one of the great agencies of Government for the redistribution of income in the interests of those whom the conscience of society insists we should help. It is also one of the guardians of rectitude and integrity. It would not be out of place for it to disclose information to obtain justice in the courts. On the contrary, it would be wrong for the Revenue to continue to connive at deceit in the courts either at the expense of the public or of other members of the family involved in the hearings.
It would be a step forward if we voted in favour of greater disclosure of Inland Revenue information. I hope the Minister will explain the effect of the clause as it stands and how matters would be changed if my perhaps defective drafting were incorporated into the clause. I recognise this is a new departure, and we shall listen carefully to what the Minister has to say. It is right to give Labour Members the opportunity to show where their social consciences lie and I hope they will be willing to join me in the vote.
I recognise that the House will have to return to this matter in any event in the wider context of schemes for maintenance, and what the Minister has to say will determine whether I feel obliged to press the matter to a vote.

Mr. Meacher: We appreciate why the hon. Gentleman feels that more information should be provided by the Inland Revenue, but, as I think he appreciated, this matter goes rather wider than the Bill. I do not think the amendment is relevant to the Bill.
Decisions on questions of title do not hinge on the income of the person contributing towards the cost of a child's maintenance. In those cases which wholly depend on contributions—for example, where a child is moved from one household to another—it is the level of contribution that counts and not the income of the contributor. But even if in certain circumstances the information about a person's income were required, the situation is already fully covered by subsection (2)(b) which explicity permits disclosure of Inland Revenue information.
for the purposes of proceedings (civil or criminal) in connection with the operation of this Part of this Act".
There is therefore already written into the Bill the necessary provision for disclosure of information in those cases which are highly specific.
More generally with regard to the child benefit, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that his amendment is not relevant because it takes no account of the question of title, and if we are talking about criminal cases generally, which is perhaps what the hon. Gentleman had more in mind, I would not accept the wording of the amendment. In any event the amendment, as a constituent


part of the Bill, would be particularly inappropriate in this context.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Are we to understand that under the clause information could be disclosed by the Commissioners for Inland Revenue in connection with court proceedings—but not to the court, only to the Department of Health and Social Security?

2.30 a.m.

Mr. Meacher: I shall have to seek confirmation of that point. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is right, and he is raising a matter which is different from that involved in the amendment. I will certainly seek to clarify the matter. However, I hope that he will accept that the amendment is inappropriate.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: We are in a rather unsatisfactory position because the Minister has been unable to guide us on the point of obvious importance. I recognise that even had I been successful with the amendment it would have had only a limited effect. If I withdraw it I hope that my words will not be entirely lost, because this is an important issue. I hope that the Inland Revenue will not remain adamant. In the light of the Minister's words, particularly the tone of his remarks, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 13

PERSONS OUTSIDE GREAT BRITAIN

Sir George Young: I beg to move Amendment No. 12, in page 8, line 19, leave out paragraph (a).

Mr. Deputy Speaker: With it we may also consider Amendment No. 13, in page 8, line 23, leave out subsection (3).

Sir George Young: The clause deals with the residential qualifications for child benefit. My hon. Friends and I are very concerned that some British citizens currently paying tax in this country and currently in receipt of the child tax allowance will not be eligible for the new child benefit which will replace the tax allowance because very much tighter

residential qualifications will be insisted upon.
We believe that considerable injustice will be visited upon certain people under this clause unless it is amended in the way we suggest. Subsection (1) gives the Minister the absolute power to do what he or she wants regardless of anything else in the Bill. Those of us who served on the Committee have resigned ourselves to seeing paragraphs such as that.
Subsection (2) deals with residential qualifications of the child and subsection (3) covers the residential qualifications of the parent. Both subsections are drawn very tightly and provide that no child benefit is payable unless both parent and child are in Great Britain for the week in question. If the Minister were to operate the Bill within the strict guidelines set out he would be in difficulty. The Minister made it clear in debate and in the notes on the clauses that the Government would not insist on the letter of the law. However, he was not able to give us assurances that certain groups would not be unfairly penalised, which is why we have tabled the amendments.
Amendment No. 12 deals with the residential qualification of children. At present those people living in the United Kingdom and paying United Kingdom tax can claim child tax allowances even if their children are not in the country. This is reasonable and the situation has remained unchanged under successive administrations. The obligation of a parent to look after his child and the need to make financial provision for him is as strong whether the child is with him in this country or with friends and relatives overseas. As the Tax Credit Study Group said in evidence to the Select Committee that examined the tax credit scheme:
The income tax child allowance is given in respect of non-resident children and there is no tax principle which would point against the payment of tax credits as a form of tax relief in respect of them.
No objection was raised in Committee by the Government against the principle behind our amendment. The objection put forward by the Minister was that there was no effective means of checking abuse. I do not think anyone disputes for a moment that on occasions the


hospitality of this country is abused by heads of certain immigrant families who claim tax allowance for fictitious children. While it is an unfortunate characteristic of some British families to have children and then forget about them, some families from the Indian subcontinent do the opposite and remember children they have not had. I am sure that I speak for all hon. Members when I say that this type of tax evasion is to be roundly condemned, but the Government seem to be going a stage further and saying that it is not the abuse that must be stamped out but the benefit itself.
In Committee the Minister said that because a proportion of the claims for children overseas were fraudulent, all claims for children not resident in the country are to be disallowed and taxpayers in this country currently getting child tax allowance for children overseas, whose existence has never been disputed by the Inland Revenue or anyone else, are to be deprived of the benefit because of the activities of the minority the existence of whose children is in dispute.
It is common knowledge that many benefits administered by the Department are abused, and in the Daily Express today there are allegations of large-scale abuse of supplementary benefits by the IRA. But no one has said that because supplementary benefits or unemployment benefit are abused they should be totally withdrawn. The answer to abuse is to increase the penalties and the methods of detection. If a benefit is sensible—be it child benefit or supplementary benefit—it should not be discontinued for those entitled to it because it is being abused by those who are not entitled to it.
In Committee the Under-Secretary of State said that the scale of abuse was such that the Government could not turn a blind eye to it, and he quoted from the Third Report of the Public Accounts Committee in 1967–68 which suggested that half the claims from a sample immigrant group were fraudulent. I suspect that the evidence on which that conclusion was based dates from 1965 or 1966, and it is therefore getting on for 10 years old.
Are the Government saying that in the light of the PAC report seven years ago no action has been taken by the Inland Revenue to try to cut down on this

abuse? Is that because tax inspectors take no account of the existence of abuse? It was the Inland Revenue itself that made the investigations and brought to light the extent of the fraudulent claims. If it can determine that half the claims are fraudulent for the purpose of its investigations, the Inland Revenue can equally determine the number of claims that are fraudulent for the purpose of child benefit. If the Minister says that no progress has been made in the past seven years in cutting down fraudulent claims, he will have difficulty in persuading the House to move with him.
There is one final point on this aspect. If it were the case that the abuse was so widespread, can the Minister explain why the Treasury has never insisted on a residential qualification for the child tax allowance? In Committee the Minister admitted that there would be a significant loss to genuine claimants if our amendment were not adopted, and under pressure from Opposition Members he gave an undertaking that
We shall look at it again and try to find some means of ensuring that genuine claimants continue to receive the previous advantages in the form of child benefits."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A; 26th June 1975; c. 213.]
The Minister mentioned discussions with the Treasury on this question, and the Treasury has never insisted on a residential qualification.
We have scanned the Order Paper tonight for some Government amendments removing the injustice which the Minister said existed. Regrettably, we cannot find them. I must put two inevitable consequences to the Government if they fail to move in the direction of our amendment. First, there will be enormous resentment among immigrants, both among those with children overseas and those without, because when the tax allowances for children are phased out heads of immigrant households will suffer a drop in their take-home pay as will every other head of household. But unlike everyone else, the head of the immigrant family will not be entitled to go to the Post Office the following Tuesday to get child benefit.
Immigrant families will not only be considerably worse off if the Bill is unamended. They will be uniquely worse off. There will be an added pressure on


those families to bring their children to the United Kingdom. If they can only get the child benefit when their children are in the United Kingdom, they will try to bring them in. They have the right to bring their dependants in but it would be unfortunate if there were a sudden influx because of a defect in the Bill.
There is a second category of British citizens who are at risk if our amendment is not carried, namely those with children who have gone abroad for longer than six months but not for educational or medical reasons. There may not be many in this category but, for example, a child under school age could accompany its mother overseas while the father remained in the country for a few months before joining them. Currently he gets the child tax allowance in these circumstances. He would not get child benefit unless the amendment is carried. There seems no reason why child benefit should not be paid in these circumstances, particularly since benefit will be paid the moment the child starts going to school overseas.
With Amendment No. 12 we are also dealing with an amendment relating to the residential qualifications of the parents. As the Bill stands the parent has to fulfil certain strict residential qualifications before he is entitled to child benefit. No such restrictions are attached to the child tax allowances, which can be offset against United Kingdom income tax regardless of the location of the parent. Clause 13 (3) says that the parent must actually be in Great Britain during the week in which he collects the child benefit.
On the fact of it, employees of multinational companies whose work takes them regularly out of the country could forfeit the child benefit for the weeks they are away. In Committee and in the notes on the clauses, the Minister made it clear that there would be flexibility in administering this part of the Bill. He was not able to give us the assurance for which we pressed, namely that the qualifications should be the same relating to the child tax allowance. It seems quite unfair that the head of a household in the United Kingdom currently supporting his family and receiving tax allowances should, because of his obligations, forfeit child benefit simply because the Government have changed the residential rules

for the new benefit. He cannot alter his employment or his international movements simply to suit the convenience of the Minister.
Under pressure in Committee the Minister was forced to concede that it would not be fair to exempt the categories of employee cited in the notes on the clauses. We would like a commitment that any United Kingdom citizen paying tax in this country will receive the treatment proposed in the notes on the clauses for merchant seamen, civil servants and members of the Forces.
At no point has the Minister objected to the general principles behind our amendments which are embodied in tax legislation subscribed to by successive Governments. The Government shelter behind arguments of administrative convenience which we do not believe to be insuperable. We look for some reassurance that concessions will be granted by the Government to cover the particular injustices we have identified.

Mr. O'Malley: I do not wish to add a great deal to what I said on this subject in Committee. First, the Government will certainly administer the system flexibly and sensibly. Second, we are preparing regulations to provide that where a British citizen working overseas is paying United Kingdom income tax during a period of 365 days, the child benefit will be payable. Third, I recognise the concern felt on both sides of the House over the position of some of the families the hon. Gentleman has described.
It is nearly two years before the child benefit scheme comes into operation in April 1977. Therefore, there is ample time for this matter to be examined in detail. The Bill is not a rigid instrument and there is considerable flexibility to operate through regulations. The legislation affecting child tax allowances will not come before the House until next year's Finance Bill. Therefore, I am willing to give the House an assurance that the Government will consider whether it is possible to meet the views expressed in Committee. I make no commitment until we have studied the matter—I am in no position to do so—but we want to be fair. Our minds are not closed on the matter and we will look at it again to see whether anything can be done.
I cannot recommend the House to accept the amendment, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the House will feel that I have given some assurance on the issues he has raised.

2.45 a.m.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: On the question of the taxpayer who is overseas, dealt with in Amendment No. 13, we are grateful to the Minister for what he has said. He has put on the record the contents of a letter dated 4th July which he caused to be sent to me. Plainly he has carefully carried out his commitment to reconsider the restriction of the provisions of the Bill to a limited category of people working abroad. I understand that he confirms the sentence in the letter which reads:
I have therefore decided that the regulations will ensure that not only civil servants and members of Her Majesty's Forces remain within the child benefit scheme whilst they and their families are abroad, but so will anyone else who with his family is sent abroad by his employer, for the duration of the time he has to pay United Kingdom tax on his salary or pay".
That is the minimum which should be conceded because, as the Bill overtakes child tax allowances, as long as a person is subject to United Kingdom taxation, he should get the benefit of the child benefit.
I am grateful to the Minister of State for his assurance that in the next two years he will be looking at the problem of immigrant families, but I hope that he will accept that if he is not careful he will commit a serious injustice unless his review finds a solution. We agreed in Committee that there was a widespread practice, particularly among the immigrant community, of maintaining children who remain at home in the care of relatives either in the Caribbean or India. It would be wrong to introduce a child benefit scheme which was intended to be of assistance to heads of households in undertaking their family commitments if one ruled out family commitments of residents of this country who had part of their family abroad. The drop in their income to which reference has been made which they would suffer uniquely would be indefensible.
I am not rejecting but welcoming the Minister's reassurance but strongly restating our case and trust that, in addition to considering the problem, he will realise

that there is a serious injustice which must be put right before the regulations are introduced if there is to be no grave reaction from the immigrant community. The 4th July letter was not encouraging on the immigrant question. It stated:
Your second point, the position of the immigrant whose dependent children are remaining in his country of origin, raises an entirely different question. These children have never been within the family allowance scheme of this country: indeed, they will be qualifying for whatever family benefits are payable in the country where they reside. It would therefore seem inappropriate to bring such dependants within the framework of the child benefit scheme at all (outside the EEC and reciprocal agreement countries) unless and until they come to the United Kingdom".
The letter therefore rejects the case for immigrant children. It would seem to be inappropriate, using what I believe to be a false argument by pointing out that Service men who have remained in India or the West Indies have never received a family allowance but they receive the child tax allowance.
One of our criticisms throughout has been that there have been two different practices, one for child tax allowances and one for family allowances, and the family allowance qualification has always been more restrictive. One of our fears has been that in amalgamating the two the temptation would be to adopt the more restrictive rules applying to family allowances and therefore inflict some positive decline in income on those who get the benefit of the child tax allowances. An important illustration is that of immigrant families with children living abroad who are maintained by parents earning and living in this country.
While I welcome the assurance of the Minister of State, I trust that the Government will give some reality to that commitment. I hope that before the regulations are produced the apparent injustice enshrined in Clause 13(2)(a) will be removed from the people we have in mind.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 15

RECIPROCAL AGREEMENTS WITH COUNTRIES OUTSIDE THE UNITED KINGDOM

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I beg to move Amendment No. 14, in page 9, line 13, leave out Clause 15.
I am glad to hear noises which suggest that the Deputy Chief Whip and other unlikely attenders of our debates agree with my amendment.
This is intended as a paving amendment for a brief debate on a clause which was not considered in Committee, and which, upon reflection, it seems to us should be simplified and explained.
This amendment concerns the reciprocal agreements between this country and foreign countries on child benefit payments. These powers to allow the Government to enter into such reciprocal agreements are in principle unobjectionable.
I should like the Government to make clear the future position of these reciprocal agreements. First, with what countries are there reciprocal agreements on family allowances? The list is somewhat inconsistent. The most suprising countries do not have agreements, whereas others do. Will the Minister state which countries, for which agreements exist, provide benefits equivalent to family allowances to British nationals resident in those countries?
The Child Benefit Bill will extend the benefit paid in the United Kingdom. Will the present family allowances agreements be extended automatically to include child benefit, so that nationals of those countries with which we have agreements will receive the new and extended child benefit as long as they are in this country? If not, is the reason that the provision in this country is so generous that it is inappropriate to carry on with the family allowances agreements? Will the Government renegotiate these agreements to correct the fact that in future the United Kingdom will be giving more generous treatment to children? If the Government renegotiate the agreements or say that all present family allowances agreements will be extended to cover child benefit, what will be the position of the British taxpayer?
Clause 15(2)(c) gives the Government power to make the necessary financial adjustments. I assume that the adjustments will involve an increase in public expenditure to enable the Government to pay child benefit to the nationals of those countries with which we have reciprocal agreements. It is possible to say what increased expenditure will flow from

extending the present agreements to include child benefit? If substantial expenditure is involved, we may have to look at that more closely.

Mr. Meacher: The hon. Gentleman asked three brief questions on Clause 15 which I shall seek to answer. The first concerned the countries with which Britain has a reciprocal agreement—that is, outside the EEC—on family allowances. They are as follows: Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. The hon, Gentleman is right to point out that there are many important countries, including the United States, with which there is not at present a reciprocal agreement.
The power in Clause 15 would be used to adapt these agreements to cover child benefit when the FAM scheme ceases or to enter into new agreements relating to child benefit.
The hon. Gentleman's second question was whether the nationals of those countries with which we have reciprocal agreements in respect of family allowances will get the child benefit if they are resident in the United Kingdom. My understanding is that that is so. It would form part of the renegotiated reciprocal agreement in respect of the introduction of child benefit.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The Minister answered one of my questions ambiguously. At I gave him no notice, he may need assistance. He said that the powers in the Bill enabled the Government to adapt the present agreements or to enter into new ones. That is precisely the question I asked him. Do the Government intend to adapt the agreements—which simple means substituting child benefit for family allowances, so extending the scope of the agreements—or to approach all the countries asking for a quid pro quo before continuing the agreement? I ask the Minister which course the Government intend to take.

Mr. Meacher: The hon. Gentleman is perspicacious even at this hour. He is right in pointing out that the powers enable the Government to adopt either course. The course they adopt will depend on the reciprocal agreements which exist for British nationals resident in those countries. There is the option to do either, according


to whichever is appropriate. I hope that I am not being ambiguous but making clear that the Government are keeping their options open.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I realise the Minister's difficulty, but he has again begged the question. We want to know the circumstances which will cause the Government to seek to renegotiate. What is the difference between the type of agreement which will be adapted and the type that will be renegotiated? Perhaps now that I have given the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to seek advice he will make the position clear.

Mr. Meacher: The advice confirms what I have already said. If the hon. Gentleman presses me on which criteria we might use on a specific case, I will write to him.
The third matter raised by the hon. Gentleman concerned Clause 15(2)(c):
for making any necessary financial adjustments
He asked whether that provision was likely to involve any significant extra burden on public expenditure. All I can tell him is that changes will be made which may in some cases involve certain necessary financial adjustment. That must depend on the reciprocal benefits available to British nationals resident in the other countries. If the hon. Gentleman asks me how much financial expenditure might be involved, I cannot possibly give him an accurate answer. Again, if he wishes to press me on that point I will certainly see that we send him the information in the precise form he wishes as soon as it is available to the Department.

3.0 a.m.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I should like to press the hon. Gentleman, but only to the extent of asking him to carry out his undertaking to write to me, as he has so courteously offered. I accept that I have not given notice of these questions, but they are fairly obvious questions that leap to the mind if one is considering agreements of this kind.
Nothing that the Under-Secretary has said has alarmed me, but nothing that he has said has enlightened me very much. I think that he has been doing his best to help the House, however, and,

on that understanding, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 17

SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS IN RESPECT OF CHILDREN

Amendment proposed: No. 16, in page 12, line 19, at end insert—
'(4A) Regulations may provide for treating child benefit paid under this Act as having been properly paid for any period for which it is not in fact payable in cases where in consequence of a subsequent decision under the Social Security Act 1975 the person in respect of whom the child benefit was paid is entitled to a non-contributory invalidity pension for that period, and for reducing or withholding any arrears payable by virtue of the subsequent decision
(4B) Regulations may also provide for treating a non-contributory invalidity pension paid to a person which it is subsequently decided was not payable as having been properly paid for any period for which it is not in fact payable in cases where in consequence of a subsequent decision under this Act another person is entitled to child benefit in respect of him for that period, and for reducing or withholding any arrears payable by virtue of that subsequent decision'.—[Mr. O'Malley.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): With this it may be convenient to take Government Amendment No. 20.

Sir George Young: A clear explanation does not appear to be forthcoming as to why these amendments are necessary. Perhaps the Government could enlighten us. The object seems to be to make certain that in no case is child benefit paid for a child for whom non-contributory invalidity pension is being paid. On the face of it, it seems that the occasion would never arise, because NCIP is not payable to a child in any case and for those who are over 16 NCIP would not be payable to a child at university or other educational establishment. I do not see what precautions the Government are taking. It seems that legislation already safeguards the position and that NCIP is not payable at the same time as child benefit.

Mr. O'Malley: I am delighted to explain the amendments. The purpose is to prevent duplication between child benefit payable to parents and NCIP,


which a handicapped young person might receive in his own right, and to achieve a smooth transition from child benefit to the more substantial social security benefit.
It is considered better to treat a young handicapped person as a beneficiary in his own right than to pay child benefit to his parents. However, it is not intended that there should be an automatic withdrawal of child benefit at age 16 when a child, although severely handicapped, is receiving such education as is consistent with his condition, otherwise, we might be faced with the situation where a handicapped child would neither attract child benefit nor qualify for NCIP. It is our intention to allow child benefit to continue in such cases until NCIP is awarded. I hope that that answers the hon. Member's question.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 1

EXCLUSIONS FROM ENTITLEMENT

Amendment made: No. 20, in page 18, line 30 at end insert—

'Childen entitled to non-contributory invalidity pension

4A. Except where regulations otherwise provide, no person shall be entitled to child benefit in respect of a child for any week in which the child is entitled to a non-contributory invalidity pension under the Social Security Act 1975'.—[Mr. O'Malley.]

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

3.3 a.m.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The Government seem to be reduced to silence at this late hour, a problem entirely of their own creation. But at this late hour there is no point in regretting it further, as I trust that they have some regrets about it themselves. If they do not wish to comment on Third Reading, I shall do so briefly.
At the end of the discussion of the Bill by this House we welcome the Secretary of State's adoption of part of the Conservative Party's tax credit scheme, which is essentially what the Bill is. It is a sensible reform of the structure of family provision and one of which we

look forward to making use ourselves when we are returned to power and are able to do so.
It is a structure Bill only, as has been said many times on both sides throughout these discussions. We have the future of family provision mapped out in form but not in substance and major questions remain to be answered when we know what financial commitment the Government will have and when we can work out the public expenditure problems that will be thrown up when the Government begin to operate the Bill in 1977.
There will then be debates on the level of benefit and therefore on the position of the standard rate income tax payer and the ordinary wage earner with a family. Those debates will decide whether the Bill can conceivably represent an improvement in family provision. All we can say now is that the omens of the Government's good intentions are not particularly favourable.
The Bill is defective in that it has no starting date of any kind, and the Government have specifically rejected the date of April 1976, for which all had been led to hope. There is no provision for the new benefit to be reviewed annually or at all. Whatever level of benefit is introduced there is the risk of its being steadily eroded by inflation.
The Government have introduced into the Bill as it stands no commitment, except in vague principle, to the idea of bringing in age-related benefits. A child benefit scheme with no age-related benefits represents a great injustice to those who have older children. There is no comparison between the cost of providing for a baby and the cost of providing for a 15-year old. A structure Bill which does not have age-related benefits is defective, and it is a situation which should be remedied as soon as possible.
The Government's political will—that is a phrase that has been used before on this subject—is open to considerable doubt. That doubt is underlined by the cynical handling of the Bill in Committee as regards the manning of the Committee and by the time of night at which our deliberations on Report have been allowed to take place. The Government have relegated this subject to a second-rate unimportant Bill in the way in which it has been handled. It seems that they


expected to get a few cheap plaudits but not serious discussion.
We think that the Bill as it stands will be of some good purpose at some time. Unfortunately it is a good idea that has got into bad hands. This is one of our proposals that has been taken over by the Government. We confirm that we care about family poverty even if the Government at times rather conceal the fact. We intend to continue making the running. One weapon is given to us by the Bill in the form in which it is now to leave the House.

3.7 a.m.

Mr. Penhaligon: I wish to make passing reference to the new clause that I and my colleagues tabled but which was not called—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Order. On Third Reading the hon. Member may refer only to what is in the Bill.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Mellish): Say that it is a good Bill and sit down.

Mr. Penhaligon: It is what I wish were in the Bill to which I wish to refer. Given the opportunity, I would table an amendment to make the benefit taxable for a specific sum. Such an amendment would direct most help towards the lowest paid.

3.8 a.m.

Mrs. Castle: The hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clark) is entitled in his desperation, I suppose, to clutch what comfort he can to his own breast. The fact is that the Bill ends an era of Tory neglect of family support.
Of course this is a structure Bill. All major changes in social security provisions are embodied in structure Bills. As we all know, structure Bills are powerful weapons in the hands of Parliament. Such Bills set the framework of policy to which Ministers are called upon to conform by Parliament.
The hon. Gentleman to the end has kept up his petty and pathetic attempts to hide the inadequacy of his own Government's previous policies. The hon. Gentleman says that there is no starting date. He knows that the provision in the Bill is exactly the same as in all social

security Bills, including those of his own Government. The provision of starting dates comes under commencing orders.
The hon. Gentleman complains that there is no uprating provision when the provision in the Bill is far superior to that in the family allowances legislation which it replaces. However, we shall allow him what comfort he can gain from the fact that in bringing the Bill before the House, and carrying it through as we shall this morning, the Government have shown a political will which our predecessors have not demonstrated.

3.10 a.m.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: It is 35 years since Lord Keynes suggested in an article, afterwards reprinted as a pamphlet under the title "How to Pay for the War", that family allowances and child tax allowances should be amalgamated. Many speeches have been made, many reports written and many representations made to official bodies and commissions of inquiry on this subject—and finally we have come to this Bill.
I wish to welcome the Bill, even though I have been critical of the Secretary of State for Social Services in her approach to the matter and her handling of details, which have been defective in many respects. The idea is triumphantly right. Perhaps we may hope that in due time, in other hands, the Bill will prove, too, to be of tremendous benefit to families.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (MEMBERSHIP)

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That Mrs. Winifred Ewing be designated a member of the European Parliament: That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.—[Mr. Walter Harrison.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): I should inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendments in the name of the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) and his hon. Friends: after "Mrs. Winifred Ewing", insert "and Mr. Geraint Howells", and leave out "a member" and insert "members".
I also understand that Mr. Speaker has been asked whether he will allow a manuscript amendment, as an amendment to the proposed motion, in line I after "That" insert
Mr. Russell Johnston be discharged from membership of the European Parliament and that…".
Mr. Speaker has indicated that he is willing to select this amendment. Because it comes at an earlier place in the motion, that amendment will have to be moved and disposed of before the amendments which stand on the Order Paper.

Mr. Ifor Davies: I beg to move, as a manuscript amendment, in line 1, after "That", insert
Mr. Russell Johnston be discharged from membership of the European Parliament and that".
I understand that, following discussions with the parties concerned, the amendment is acceptable.

3.13 a.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I wish to say at the outset that I was grateful for the succinct way in which the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Davies) moved his manuscript amendment, leaving me in moving my amendment to explain the reason behind the manuscript amendment.
I shall be as brief as I can. We have already had a major debate on this issue. I wish to make it absolutely plain that I am not opposed to the selection of the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing), still less to the suggestion that the Scottish National Party should have a seat in the European Assembly. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than the fact that the SNP will now seek to represent the majority view on Europe, as shown by the Scottish people in the referendum. We hope that we may see—here I call in aid "Rab" Butler's words in a different context—them become the best Europeans we have. It may produce certain frictions and pressures on the body politic of the SNP, but I hope that they will become as great a convert as did the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Agriculture. We shall watch the matter with close attention.
The reason we are speaking tonight is to register—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for interrupting but we should dispose first of the manuscript amendment before the right hon. Gentleman moves his own amendment.

Mr. Thorpe: I apologise. Perhaps I may formally second the manuscript amendment and leave it at that. I hope, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I have not precluded my right to try to catch your eye.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not starting a precedent of seconding motions or amendments.

Amendment agreed to.

3.15 a.m.

Mr. Thorpe: My colleagues and I wish to take part in this debate in order to register a protest at the final balance of the United Kingdom delegation, which, as the House knows, consists of 16 Conservative Members, one Liberal Member and one SNP Member. We have tabled two amendments—one seeking to insert the words "Mr. Geraint Howells" in the motion after "Mrs. Winifred Ewing" and the other, consequential, seeking to leave out "a Member" and insert "Members".
The second reason is that we suggest that the different formulae that have been prayed in aid to justify the final selection are totally out of date, and the third reason is that we deplore what I can only describe as the hole-in-the-corner way in which the whole of this matter has been handled. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston) has today already made our protest in the European Parliament. He has indicated that the basis of the United Kingdom delegation has upset the balance that has been traditionally accepted by the Community and that he stood in the European Parliament today representing 5⅓ million people, as the sole delegate—[Interruption.]—Hon. Members may not have read the Treaty of Rome; I will refer to that in a moment—representing more than Denmark. Luxembourg and Ireland added together. They have 26 delegates.
Since the debate on 1st July 1 have had the advantage of hearing the broadcast made in "News Desk" on 4th July


by the Patronage Secretary, so I know exactly what his views are, and, for greater accuracy, I have brought the transcript. We know that the right hon. Gentleman, when dealing with a combination of facts which include Europe and the Liberal Party, is not always in what one might call his most calm and reflective moments. We remember a previous broadcast after the Second Reading of the European Community Bill when the Liberal vote unashamedly saved the Tory Government from defeat. Had it not been for that vote, we might not now be discussing the representation at the European Parliament. On that occasion I think the right hon. Gentleman said that the Liberal Party were "in the gutter". However we make allowances for his colourful broadcasting.
According to the transcript, the right hon. Gentleman said that I was talking nonsense and that I knew it. Very few people know that they are talking nonsense. They might be talking nonsense, but to be cognisant of it is the height of acuity. He said:
The Scottish Nationalists are also a party in their own right, so are the Irish. The trouble with Mr. Thorpe is that he is not living in the world of today.
May I say that the reverse is the case. No one is more aware than I am that the chemistry of this House of Commons has changed. The formula of the Council of Europe, the formula of the Committee of Selection which existed in the day when there were two major parties and a Liberal Party with six Members of Parliament and 2 million votes, when all the minority could hope for were the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table, has changed. That is why I protest at the present selection of the 36 delegates to the European Parliament. I have not underestimated the change. It is the right hon. Gentleman and his croney on the Opposition Front Bench who have not changed. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is not in Europe. They could have fixed many things, but they did not fix that. They are continuing to use the formula on the basis that there are two major parties and one minority party.
I am not alone in recognising how archaic is the selection procedure. Lord Shepherd in another place said that he

was prepared to have immediate conversations with the noble Lords Carrington and Byers and any independents. All I can say is that discussion in another place on the composition of delegates from that place would make a considerable change compared with anything to which we have been accustomed in the handling of these matters in the last few weeks and days.
The right hon. Gentleman himself said:
We had better get together and try and work out a different formula to ensure that in fact this is more evenly spread.…
How right he is. I accept that. Why did he not think of doing that at the beginning before the selection was made and before the great feeling of injustice was felt? I suggest that the right hon Gentleman is a very late convert to the idea of consultation.
Even that being so, I accept it and ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it will be immediately. Will it be without commitment as to the numbers? Or is it to be a case of "Whatever happens the Government must have 18 and the official Opposition must have 16, and we can discuss what happens about the rest"? It is rather like the statement by Henry Ford—"You can have any colour cat provided that it is black."
If the right hon. Gentleman says "We are going to have discussions with all the parties in the House, without commitment as to numbers, to see whether we can get a fair reflection of representation in the House of Commons and we are prepared to look also at the criteria whereby the rest of the Community countries elect their members", something will have been done.
My next point is that the right hon. Gentleman says that we are demanding two Members and we are not interested in the Scottish Nationalists or any other party, that we want two for our 11. If the right hon. Gentleman is going to talk to minorities, he might just as well know how many Members there are in the minorities. We do not have 11 Members. We have 13 Members. The right hon. Gentleman should get his figures right.
The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that not only have I not denied the case for the Scottish National Party having one Member but that in my letter of


16th June to the Prime Minister I suggested that there should be an allocation to the SNP as being an important minority in the House. So the suggestion that I was suggesting that we would be taking a seat from the SNP can be totally disproved by the correspondence.
In my letter to the Prime Minister I said that the Government party should have 18, the official Opposition 15, the Liberal Party 2, and the Scottish Nationalists one.

Mr. Russell Fairgrieve: Oh.

Mr. Thorpe: I hope that this outbreak of democracy does not horrify the hon. Member who is representing the official Opposition from the back benches.
What has happened is that the allocation of the Liberal Party has been halved, though in 1973 we had six Members of Parliament and 2 million votes and now we have 13 Members of Parliament and 5 million votes.
The Government must justify this. What has happened, of course, is that they have made a complete hash of the thing, but they have to justify it. First, they established a principle which I think is perfectly correct and understandable, which is that there must be just as many Conservative Members going as there are Labour Members going. That is not based on any known formulae. It is rather the reverse of any known formulae. It is usual for the Government to want more than the Opposition. However, the Patronage Secretary rightly takes the view that if the Opposition are, say 12, the Government should be 12. I do not dissent from that view.
The Prime Minister justified matters in this way in his letter to me of 27th June:
I explained that the elements in our Delegation have so far been related to the party proportions which the Committee of Selection use but with additional places being taken up pending the Government's participation.
Therefore, the Prime Minister's view was that one starts with the Committee of Selection basis, which would give the Labour Party 19, the Tories 15, and the others two. The Prime Minister started with this view and prided himself on having dropped from 19 to 18 for the Government, until it was realised that they had bumped up the Tories from 15

to 16 and that that might take some explaining in the constituencies. So the Government then dropped that formula and said "we are not using that formula at all." So that formula has gone out of the window.
The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd had to grasp at some alternative. He said in another place that what they were really doing, he had understood from the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. Kirk), was what the Tories had done in 1973—using the Council of Europe formula of 18, 16 and 2. I should like to know who discussed whether it would be the Council of Europe formula. Who discussed whether it would be the Committee of Selection formula?
Are we to believe that in 1973, when the Labour Party refused to take up its allocation of seats, it said "We would like you to be quite certain about one point. If we had taken up our allocation, we would have done so on the Council of Europe formula"? Are the Government seriously suggesting that there was an agreement between the two major parties in 1973?
If indeed it is correct, as the Lord Privy Seal claimed in another place, that—this is in column 342 of the House of Lords Official Report for 3rd July—whoever goes represents Parliament as a whole, when was this magic formula agreed, between whom, and who was consulted? I suspect that nobody was. I suggest that we have had a posthumous explanation from the Government for their figures.
I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury agrees with the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) who said on 19th December 1972 that not only should the House appoint a delegation to the Assembly but it should also discuss the general principles on which appointments were made. I do not believe that there was any formula. I think it was a botched-up job between the two Front Benches with Buggins taking his turn.
There are four major Opposition parties, apart from the Tories, as well as an SDLP Member and an independent Member who is unlikely to take his seat.

Mr. Mellish: The right hon. Gentleman must not get himself into such a state. The hon. Member for Fermanagh


and South Tyrone (Mr. Maguire) has not only taken his seat but has voted almost as many times as has the right hon. Gentleman himself.

Mr. Thorpe: In that case he must be a very active hon. Member and that strengthens my case. Not only do these Opposition parties, with the other two hon. Members to whom I have referred have a total of 39 hon. Members, they also represent 7 million votes—24 per cent. of the total.
The hon. Lady for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) has accepted an invitation to represent the United Kingdom in the Assembly—

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: No—Scotland.

Mr. Thorpe: I would not like the hon. Lady to be under any illusions about the honour to be conferred on her. Unless and until we have direct elections with constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales, while she may speak only for Scottish interests, like it or not she is going as part of the United Kingdom delegation. This has resulted from the referendum on which the Liberal Party successfully pressed for Scotland's votes to be counted separately. Now we know the majority in Scotland, with which the SNP could not find itself in agreement before the vote.
Who says that, for all time, the official Opposition must have 16 representatives, that all other Opposition parties must have only two and that the Council of Europe formula must be applied? The Council is quite different because it allows substitutes. What criterion says that the Government must automatically have 18 seats whether they have a majority of 30 or a majority of one or two? It would have been better if these matters had been discussed before, rather than after, the event.
I had two discussions with the Prime Minister on 23rd June. They were private, but the Prime Minister sought to find a solution, and I think the Parliamentary Secretary was aware of the suggested solution. When that particular solution failed, why were we not told? Why did we have to wait until the 10 o'clock news bulletin to know that on 26th June Lord Shepherd had put down

a motion in another place, the effect of which was to appoint six Labour and four Tory peers, which meant that Lord Gladwyn had been axed and that the Liberal delegation was to be one?
Why was it that only after the event, at 4.50 p.m. the next day, the Prime Minister's letter arrived suggesting that we should take one off the Nationalists or the Tories? Why was there this total abdication by the Government from trying to see what was fair? As the Nationalists know, no approach has been made because we believe as one of the minorities in this House that they have rights and that it is right for them to have a seat. It is regrettable that it should have to be at our expense.
Lord Shepherd then said that it was only on Thursday night at 6.40 p.m. that he knew that Lord Byers was anxious about what might be in the motion which was being put down. Was there no communication between No. 10 Downing Street and Lord Shepherd, because if there were, it is strange that the noble Lord did not know until then of our interest. Then, having put down the motion, Lord Shepherd said,
I apologise because I did not appreciate the full implications of the Motion on the Order Paper. I knew what was sought to be done… but I did not appreciate that it arbitrarily removed a certain name from the existing list."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 3rd July 1975; Vol. 362, c. 345]
If the noble Lord knew that there were to be only 10 names and that one of the existing Peers was being excluded yet did not know that that Member was being axed, being of a generous mind I can only suggest that, having previously suggested that the noble Lord was being discourteous and devious, I shall withdraw "devious" and be prepared to suggest "naivety". That was the most extraordinary naivety which the noble Lord could have shown. That was the way in which we heard for the first time that our delegation was being cut from two to one.
We have only two considerations. First, we want to see how we can make the best possible contribution to the European Assembly. The second is to ensure that the Liberal Party is properly represented. My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness has served with great distinction and was speaking in the European Parliament today and making our


protest known. He and my noble Friend Lord Gladwyn were campaigning in the European Assembly—dare I say it?—long before the Labour Party became converted to its Europeanism. Had it not been for the Liberal Party, who knows whether there would now be a British presence in the Parliament?

Mr. John Ellis: Nonsense.

Mr. Thorpe: It happened that I was assaulted by one of the hon. Member's hon. Friends because it was the Liberal vote which saved the Second Reading of the European Communities Bill, and it was that which led the right hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) to say that the Liberals were in the gutter. The Prime Minister would never have got a majority for his views against the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party but for the support in the Lobbies of the Conservative and Liberal Members.
I have therefore been placed in an appallingly difficult situation. The representation of the Liberal Party has been arbitrarily axed, and I had to learn that from the 10 o'clock news. I am in the difficulty that Lord Gladwyn has a draft resolution on defence which he has discussed with the defence Ministers of the other nine nations. It is just possible that when it is discussed in the autumn there will be unanimity within the Community. There is a chance of that. It has immense significance if that be the case and it is something with which he is associated personally. As Vice-President of the Political Committee he has been much concerned with the report on the whole future of the Community which last January agreed to the concept of direct elections. Whether the House likes it or not, that is a pretty important decision by the Nine, and my hon. Friends and I have thought, not without much heart searching, that the contribution he has to make in the next few months is of extreme importance.
We are also aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston) has done tremendously important work on the regional committee concerned not only with Scotland but with other areas of high unemployment and low wages from which I believe the country can derive great benefit.
We have been faced with the appalling dilemma that we cannot have two representatives. Therefore, we believe it right that, temporarily, my noble Friend should at least get his report through the European Assembly and hope that it will be accepted by the Community as a whole, and then early in the autumn my hon. Friends will come back to the House after our parliamentary party has selected who from this House shall go back to the European Assembly and ask the House for its approval.
It is an appalling dilemma with which to be faced. I do not believe that it is a dilemma with which we should have been faced. I do not believe that we have gone about the representation of this party, and not merely this party but this country collectively, in the way that we should have done, and that is why we are talking about the European representatives of the United Kingdom as a whole. It is for all parties to be brought into these consultations and for us to try to see whether we can agree a formula which is as fair as that obtaining in the rest of the Community.
I personally make no secret of the fact that I hope that there will soon be direct elections. An article in the Western Mail recently suggested that there should be three specific seats for Wales, six for Scotland and 27 for England. One can argue about the figures, but I should like to see each of the nations of this country given a specific right to choose its own representatives at the European Assembly.
We are protesting tonight first, because of the arrogant assumption that has operated that the old formula of the two-party system of the past still obtains; secondly, because the ultimate balance is wrong and is unrepresentative of the people of this country; and thirdly, because of the way in which it was done. Finally, the two Front Benches have nothing of which to be proud in this matter. They have much to do to put it right, and I hope that we shall move towards some formula by which we can select Members for the European Assembly which is at least as fair as that obtaining in the rest of the Common Market.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. George Thomas): Does the right hon. Gentleman wish to move his amendment?

Mr. Thorpe: No.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether I am clear that he withdrew the charge of deviousness against the noble Lord to whom he referred during his speech?

Mr. Thorpe: Yes, indeed I did. I substituted another word, but I say in fairness to the record that it was an allegation that I made on a previous occasion and that it passed without comment. But for the purpose of the record I withdrew it and substituted what I think was a more accurate word on this occasion.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. I was not in the Chair on the previous occasion or I should have drawn attention to the matter then.

3.39 a.m.

Mr. Douglas Henderson: I am sure it is of some comfort to the Government tonight that no major legislation is before the House, because if there were they might be outvoted by the ranks on the Opposition benches.
I am sure it is of some comfort to the Opposition that one Scottish Member is present when we are discussing the major issue of Scotland's representation in the EEC.
I shall not try to follow the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party in his remarks, except to say that I feel that the Liberal Party has some cause for complaint in the way in which its representation has been treated and the way in which it has been considered in this whole matter. All parliamentary colleagues from Scotland would wish to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston) for the work he has carried out in the European Assembly, the way in which he has represented Scotland and the contribution he has made. I hope that he will accept this tribute from all parties in Scotland for his work. I hope that his absence from that body will be only temporary and that he will be returning there shortly to make the sort of contribution he made in the past.
My purpose tonight is to support the nomination of my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing)

as a member of the European Assembly. If I may quarrel for a moment with the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) I must make it clear that my hon. Friend is going there to speak not for the United Kingdom but only for Scotland, for Scotland's rights and interests and no one else's. Let that be clear. We nominate her to speak for the people of Scotland who are entitled to a voice in that body that is exclusively and authentically Scottish.
The right hon. Member for Devon, North suggested that the Scottish National Party might be the best Europeans we have. The Scottish people have always had very much closer connections with the European countries that we have had with some of our neighbours in these islands. In a sense it will be a case of our returning home, to get back to our neighbours in Europe. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Fairgrieve) finds that amusing, in the same way as he finds amusement in the fact that there is urban deprivation in Scotland and massive unemployment.

Mr. Fairgrieve: I was interested to hear the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) repeating my quotation of "Scotland returning home". He is a late conversion.

Mr. Henderson: We have always believed that Scotland has a connection with countries in Europe whether in the EEC or outside it, because the EEC is not the whole of Europe. Most sensible and right-thinking people appreciate that.
I can assure the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Moray and Nairn will be a worthy representative of Scotland. She will speak fearlessly, without inhibition and will in no way be intimidated or prevented from speaking for the people of Scotland.

Mr. Russell Johnston: The hon. Member was very kind to me and I am grateful to him for that. But I cannot allow him to be too caught up in his own rhetoric. Certainly the hon. Lady will speak effectively on the views of the SNP. But she will no more be speaking for Scotland than I did or any other Scottish Member.

Mr. Henderson: I am sorry that the hon. Member should bring that rather sour note into our proceedings.

Mr. Russell Johnston: It was not sour.

Mr. Henderson: I think it was rather sour. It ill becomes him to introduce this note, particularly as my hon. Friend will be speaking on behalf of 31 per cent. of the Scottish electorate whereas the hon. Member spoke for less than 8 per cent. of that electorate. In that sense we have a fourfold increase in Scottish representation in the European Assembly. The hon. Member would have been well advised not to intervene. I commend my hon. Friend to this House for nomination to the European Assembly.
I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury will repeat the assurance given by the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd in another place, that we must have new talks and a new view about representation, not simply in the European Assembly but on a vast variety of matters. The days when matters could be settled between the right hon. Gentleman and his opposite number, who mercifully is absent from the Opposition Front Bench, and when the House could operate effectively as a result of their discussions must be past. The Government's majority is about one, represented by the right hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Stone-house), who, I believe, is shortly to return to our midst.
In those circumstances, it is right that there should be a complete review of the way in which the affairs of the House, its committees and procedures are conducted so as to take account of all the elements and views represented in it by the democratic vote of the electorate. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will assure us that this will happen, not just in relation to the European Assembly but in connection with the affairs of this House. Knowing the right hon. Gentleman to be a fair and honest-minded democrat, I am sure that practical, positive and earnest proposals will be put before us.

3.46 a.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: This is not a happy occasion for the House, and plainly it is not a happy occasion for the Liberal Party. It is difficult to believe that the Government have handled the question of the selection of Members for the British delegation as well as they could have done. There are two lessons to be drawn from that. First, we should hasten to find an

acceptable formula for direct elections to the European Parliament, and, secondly, until we achieve that, which may be some years, the problems which have arisen on this occasion must not be allowed to arise again.
It is news which I had not heard before this debate that the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston), who has been my colleague in the British delegation for 21 years, must now withdraw from it. I should like to pay a tribute to him for the work he has done in the European Parliament. His dignity and conviction have carried much weight in the Parliament and its committees and added lustre to the delegation. Colleagues in my party will miss his presence in Strasbourg, and in saying that I believe that I speak for all members of the European Parliament. It seems a pity that his services will not continue to be available to the European Parliament, at any rate for the present. I regret the news that he must withdraw.
We shall welcome the presence in the European Parliament of the hon. Lady the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing). The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Henderson) did not quite capture the mood of the European Parliament in his remarks, and I hope that his hon. Friend will be able to convince him of that with the passage of time. The issues which we tackle in Strasbourg go wider than purely nationalistic issues. I feel sure that, with her talents and knowledge, she will be able to make a contribution on a much wider scale. I am sure that she would wish to do so, and I trust that she will.

3.49 a.m.

Mr. Richard Wainwright: The name in the amendment is that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells), who is an excellent candidate for the European Parliament in his own right. But I speak briefly to the fact, which I believe to be of considerable significance, that he is also the Liberal Member for Cardigan.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is talking of an amendment which his right hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) indicated that he did not wish to move. We are now discussing the Government motion.

Mr. Wainwright: I thought that I might be in order if I briefly refreshed the memory of the House as to what was on the Order Paper. I now address myself to the question of principle.
The European Parliament stands out as the institution of the European Community to which this country can claim to offer the biggest contribution. In a geographical and social sense the United Kingdom has one of the most representative Parliaments in the European Community. Our Parliament is based upon constituencies. We have no time for party lists. We pride ourselves on reflecting all sorts and conditions of men and women in these islands. It is a tragedy that on the two major occasions when this House has addressed itself to the way in which it should be represented in the European Parliament it has made a thorough botch of the job as a result of the antics of one or more of the major parties.
I do not want to open old wounds. However, on the first occasion the Labour Party abstained from membership of the European Parliament, thereby preventing our delegation from being fully representative. On this occasion, when that could have been repaired, the hole and corner business between the two Front Benches has again botched the job.
I now refer to the geographical composition of the total delegation, which has been put together in such an extraordinary way. There are gaping holes in its representative character. If one of my colleagues is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he will develop the case for representation for the western part of the country. There are two other great gaps. I refer to Yorkshire, my native county. North Yorkshire has a relatively small population of 644,000. It has an elected Member of Parliament who is a member of the delegation, for which I am glad. Humberside, which was formerly part of Yorkshire, has a population of 847,000. It is represented in the delegation by one Member of Parliament. South Yorkshire, with a population of 1,320,000, is also represented on the delegation by one Member of Parliament. West Yorkshire, which is perhaps best known in other parts of the country for its character, with a population of over 2 million

people, is not represented on the delegation to the European Parliament. Mathematically that is unjustifiable. If there are 36 places for a population of 55 million, it follows that any characteristic group in the country with a population exceeding 1½ million would, on an arithmetical basis, be entitled to a member in the delegation.
I do not base my case on mere arithmetic. I believe that any group with distinctive characteristics and a homogeneous background is entitled to stake a claim for representation in our delegation. That brings me to the question of Wales.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have been very tolerant. The hon. Member must now address himself to whether Mrs. Winifred Ewing be designated a member of the European Parliament, and that the order be a Standing Order of the House.

Mr. Wainwright: I say at once that together with the Leader of my party, the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), I welcome unreservedly the motion that the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) be part of the delegation because it fits in with the case I am making. I am appalled at the contrast between her appointment—which I hope will be made without any dissenting voices—and the unfortunate position of Wales which will have only one hon. Member included in the delegation.
Whereas North-East Wales will be reasonably represented in the European Parliament, West Wales will have no representation. It is within the knowledge of most hon. Members that those two parts of Wales have different characteristics and a different history.
I regret very much that because the choice of the delegation has been made in such a hole and corner fashion the team which will go to Europe, whatever the merits of its individual members, cannot claim to be representative in the way in which the House is representative of the social and geographic components of our great nation. That could have been avoided, and I greatly regret that it has not been.

3.56 a.m.

Mr. Russell Fairgrieve: I also regret that at this interesting hour the House is having to discuss


this subject, and I have every sympathy with the Members of the Liberal Party in their predicament. I suppose that I must be the non-opposing crony—referred to by the Leader of the Liberal Party—who happens to be here on the Opposition benches.
The hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright) referred to a hole and corner agreement. Let us be honest. This has nothing to do with the official Opposition. It is a matter entirely between the Government, the Liberal Party and the SNP. There has been no hole and corner agreement between the Labour Government and the Conservative Party. I am merely here as an interested spectator in this debacle—

Mr. Thorpe: If the hon. Gentleman had attended the debate in the other place and heard the support of the Tory Front Bench for the Labour Front Bench he would have realised that the Labour Government knew where their friends were.

Mr. Fairgrieve: I a talking about this place, not the other place.
Although I have a certain amount of sympathy with the Liberal Party, I wish to deal with the subject of the motion, which is Scottish National representation in the European Parliament. Whether we like it or not, the figures for Scotland are clear. At the last election 1,000,571 voted for the Labour Party, 681,269 for the Conservative Party, 228,855 for the Liberal Party and 839,628 for the Scottish National Party. The Members of Parliament elected were 41 Labour, 16 Conservative, three Liberal and 11 SNP. By any standards there should be a place for the SNP in the delegation to Europe. With all due deference, the people of Scotland put the SNP right. Of the minority parties the Liberals have borne the burden over the years when the SNP opposed membership of the EEC.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: In view of his sympathy for the Liberals, does not the hon. Member think that it would he right and proper if the Conservatives, who are entitled to 15 seats because of their representation in this House, were to make an extra seat available to the Liberals, or even to the SNP? Would he not agree that an independent

Scotland would be entitled to 10 seats in the European Assembly?

Mr. Fairgrieve: Another stupid intervention. We are dealing with the situation as it is. By any normal standards, Scotland is entitled to 3·6 representatives at the European Parliament and is getting five—two Labour, one Conservative, one Liberal and one SNP.

Mr. Henderson: I am grateful to my neighbour in Aberdeenshire for giving way to me. Does he not agree that if Scotland were independent, we should have 10 seats, not five?

Mr. Fairgrieve: I entirely disagree.
Having supported the hon. Lady the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing), let me say that I hope that she will live up to the standard and record of the hon. Member for Inverness (Mr. Johnston), Mr. Brewis—the recent hon. Member for Galloway—and the hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Mr. Corrie) and take to the European Parliament a voice not only for Scotland but for the United Kingdom.
I support the right hon. Member the Leader of the Liberal Party when he says that we are in Europe as part of the United Kingdom. Having been opposed by the SNP year after year, I have pointed out that we should invoke Article 138(3) of the Treaty of Rome, which calls for direct elections. If the hon. Lady were elected, she could then speak for Scotland. Until then she speaks for the United Kingdom and I trust that she will not forget her responsibility to the rest of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Andrew Welsh: The hon. Lady has always spoken for Scotland and will continue to do so whereever she goes.

Mr. Fairgrieve: I am merely asking that when she gets to the European Parliament the hon. Lady should broaden her horizons. May I remind the minority parties that there are 319 Labour Members, 276 Conservative Members, 13 Liberal Members and 11 SNP Members, so the breakdown of the European Parliament delegation is not unfair. In fact, it is rather generous to the SNP.
If this unruly rabble of Members who have just discovered Europe will keep


quite for a few minutes, may I say that I hope that now that the SNP has learned the decision of the Scottish electorate, it will be able to live up to it.

4.4 a.m.

Mr. David Penhaligon: I particularly welcome the selection of the hon. Lady the Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing). Although I understand her anxiety to speak just for Scotland, I make one plea from another would-be Celtic nation, Cornwall. Because of the selection, anyone from my constituency who wishes to put a regional matter before the European Parliament, whether it is the 7 per cent. unemployment rate or the substantial agricultural interest, or whatever it may be, has to travel 200 miles to find the nearest representative in the European Parliament. One of them represents one of the Southampton constituencies and one a Dorset constituency. If the Whips and the party leaders discuss regional representation, they should look more closely at the representation of some of the regions. It is little short of a scandal that areas such as Cornwall are not represented. We could not make a case for a Cornish representative, but there is not a single representative from Devon or Somerset.
I make the point, before Mr. Deputy Speaker gets up to shut me up, that there is a shocking lack of representation for an area with specific and special interests. It is an area that is misjudged by many people because they visit the county only as tourists. As a result, they do not know the underlying problems. I hope that the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn will take with her to the European Parliament a little of the Celtic feeling that exists in my county.

4.6 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Robert Mellish): I shall be very brief as it is just after five minutes past four in the morning. I certainly do not want to get involved in the turmoil that has been apparent on the other side of the House. I have been trying to follow the arguments about who represents what, where and why. I shall to understand the arguments.
I have been asked for an assurance, and that is the purpose of my intervene have to read Hansard before I am able

tion. I think that the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), the Leader of the Liberal Party, must concede that he knew all about the formula which has been followed. The right hon. Gentleman must not come out with all this nonsense about a formula suddenly being discovered which he had never heard of before, a formula which is out of date and outmoded. He knew all about the formula. We honourably followed a formula which had been followed for years, and long before I ever became my party's Chief Whip.
The detail of this matter was argued last Tuesday. I recognise that there is now a new situation in that there are other parties in the House apart from the three parties as they used to be when the formula was first introduced. It is interesting that one of the Northern Ireland parties has not yet applied to be considered for Europe. In considering any formula we had no application from that party. I noticed, by the way, that the right hon. Gentleman was going to put in a Plaid Cymru representative. It is rather strange that the hon. Member nominated on the original amendment—

Mr. Thorpe: The right hon. Gentleman should know better than I that that Member is my hon. Friend the Member for Cardigan (Mr. Howells).

Mr. Mellish: I would not know, but he certainly talks like a Plaid Cymru representative.

Mr. Thorpe: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are getting very disorderly.

Mr. Mellish: I give an assurance that we are prepared—I speak on behalf of the Opposition Chief Whip—to have discussions with the representatives of the other parties to see whether there is another formula that can be applied that is fair. However, I put on record that it is right and proper that the Government of the day—and I gather that one day the Liberals want to form a Government—should have the majority. I must make it abundantly clear that that will be the objective when we enter into discussions. As I said last Tuesday, we could have taken 19 seats although we took only 18. The fact that the Conservatives did not offer the Liberals a


seat is not a matter for me. All that I would say is that there is a great deal of good will that I want to harness. I give the assurance tonight that was given in another place—

Mr. Thorpe: When the right hon. Gentleman says that there is the condition that the Government must have priority, he will recognise that on the present delegation the Government do not have a majority although they are the largest single party. Is that what the right hon. Gentleman means?

Mr. Mellish: We are the majority and we have an overall majority over all the other parties. We are the Government of the day. I said to the House last week that every time there is a Division we seem to do very well.

Mr. Thorpe: This is a very important point. I accept the right hon. Gentleman's good faith and, speaking for my party, we shall want to have these talks as soon as possible. The right hon. Gentleman said that it must be understood that the Government had the majority. In this House that is accepted. On the present European delegation the Government do not have a majority. They are the largest single party. Is that the phrase he meant to use or not?

Mr. Mellish: I accept that. We are the largest single party, and it is in that sense that we shall go in. Although the formula has to be adjusted, there will have to be good will on the part of the Opposition if it is to make any sense.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That Mr. Russell Johnston be discharged from membership of the European Parliament and that Mrs. Winifred Ewing be designated a member of the European Parliament.
That this Order be a Standing Order of the House.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper.]

NORTH SHIELDS (FISH QUAY)

4.11 a.m.

Mr. Neville Trotter: I apologise to the Minister who is unfortunate enough to have to reply at this hour, but I ask him to bear in mind that I was on the fish quay in my constituency at five o'clock yesterday morning when he was no doubt in bed.
My original objective in seeking this debate was to obtain a decision from the Government as to the future of North Shields fish quay. In the last few hours, however, we have had notification of the Government's refusal to go ahead with this important project.
I wish therefore first to express the concern which is felt on Tyneside at this decision; secondly, to seek a more detailed explanation from the Minister; and, thirdly, to urge him to reconsider the matter.
It may be helpful briefly to review the background of the matter. North Shields has been a major fishing port for centuries and has the distinction of having been the birthplace of the first steam trawler. Today it is an ideal location for vessels engaged in North Sea fishing. The increasing move to the North Sea from distant waters has led to trade at the port expanding greatly in recent years. Apart from the fleet of large deep sea vessels operated from the port, there are currently no fewer than 45 boats based at North Shields compared with 30 five years ago and 20 ten years ago, and there are a further five fine new boats now being built.
The harbour has many natural advantages. It is particularly well suited for the main North Sea fishing grounds. The harbour is at the very mouth of the river, there are no locks and no troubles with tides.
On the other hand, the fish quay is old and quite inadequate. The list of agreed defects is long. Furthermore, the harbour is overcrowded and there is inadequate quiet water berthing. There are problems from easterly winds to which the port is exposed. There are no slipways and inadequate repair facilities. The merchanting and processing facilities are out of date and overcrowded, with


no room for expansion. The ice factory has a limited production capability.
It has been increasingly clear that major improvements are needed. In 1968 the quay passed from the ownership of the Borough of Tynemouth to the newly formed Port of Tyne Authority. Consulting engineers then reported that the quay was in poor condition. In May 1972 the then Government announced 60 per cent. grants for the six major fishing ports. A working party chaired by a representative of the Port of Tyne Authority and representing all interested parties was formed. The working party reported in September 1972 and put forward two alternatives. The first was a rehabilitation scheme, which was cheaper but in the words of the report "very much second best". The cost was estimated in 1972 as £1 million. The siting was poor by present standards and did not provide for an adequate new port.
The second proposal recommended by the working party was for completion of a new quay. This met the minimum requirements of the industry and provided an excellent dock complex for present and future growth. It had the advantage of new facilities, better berths and land available for share activities.
The conclusion of the working party was that there was no doubt that the future needs of the fishing industry on the Tyne were best served by the proposed new facility.
An application for grant was submitted as long ago as October 1973. Only now, in the last few days, has it been turned down. Brief Ministry letters gave only two short paragraphs of explanation. The first contained the words:
…having carefully considered all relevant factors, including the greatly increased cost since first mooted.
Have not the Government heard of inflation? Of course the costs have greatly increased. So have all other costs. It is only to be expected that the cost of the project would rise as a result of inflation.
The second paragraph stated that the National Ports Council advised that the project was not viable for the Port of Tyne Authority unless 85 per cent. capital grant was made available. The new

local authorities on Tyneside became effective a year ago and wholeheartedly support the scheme. I understand from senior officials of the councils concerned that firstly they are prepared to provide the necessary 25 per cent. extra funds by grant or in interest-free loans; secondly, they are prepared to guarantee any borrowing by the Port of Tyne; and thirdly, they are prepared to indemnify the Port of Tyne against any loss.
Is the Minister aware of this wholehearted and enthusiastic support from the local councils? Does this support not change the financial picture, freeing, as it does, the Port of Tyne Authority from any financial burden? Why have the Government ignored this vital aspect of the proposal which was not even mentioned in the official letter of refusal?
I have spoken in the last few hours, since the Government decision was made public, to the main parties concerned on the Tyne, and all have shared my disappointment and concern. The fishing industry is concerned at the failure to attract new industry if the scheme does not go ahead, and it doubts the ability to retain the existing industry with inadequate facilities for much longer.
There is a danger that Irvines will move their six large trawlers to another port. As the managing director put it to me, this is not a threat but pure economics. A bigger fleet is needed to operate from the port to provide an adequate labour pool and to spread the costs of port operations. The fleet cannot grow with the present inadequate facilities while a new port would enable an expansion in the size of the deep water fleet. The merchants need the new port because large trawlers are essential if supplies are to be maintained, for in bad weather landings by smaller boats are affected and if the trawlers go, the stability of the market will be affected. The processors require the scheme because there are no sites available for development behind the quayside.
The Tyne and Wear council assures me that it wishes the scheme to proceed. It sees the scheme as being advantageous, as it would provide increased employment. It would enhance amenities in the area and would increase business there. There would be a tremendous psychological boost for Tyneside if this scheme


could go ahead. Conversely, the opposite would happen if the scheme were cancelled.
May I point out to the Government that 60 per cent. grants have been approved for the other principal fishing ports—Lowestoft £3 million, Grimsby £2 million, Hull nearly £1 million, and Fleetwood over £1 million. Yet only North Shields, of all these ports, is in a special development area. So far as I am aware, none of the other ports is even in a development area, let alone a special development area. If the grant that we seek is higher than the others, it is only the result of inflation because the scheme is being considered after the others. Why should Tyneside, alone of the major ports, have missed the boat? Our need of jobs is greater, as witness the fact that we are a special development area. Up to 1,500 new jobs may be involved if the scheme goes ahead. If it does not, it will be hard to retain the existing jobs.
The offer made by the Government of a 60 per cent. grant on £236,000 to be spent on patching up a botched job on the existing quay can only be described as derisory. The grant will work out at £141,000 compared with the millions which have been approved for the other main ports.
I remind the House that the £236,000 now has to be compared with an estimate of £1 million in 1972 for what was then described as very much a second best scheme. Allowing for inflation which has also affected the cost of a botched-up job, this must be a proposal for only the minimum needed to maintain some semblance of safety. It is completely inadequate to meet any of the fair aspirations of Tyneside.
The leader of the Tyne and Wear council has indicated that his council would wish to pursue the matter further. He is particularly concerned lest the Ministry should use its power under Section 9 of the Harbours Act 1964 to prevent the council looking elsewhere for finance, and I trust that the Minister will undertake that having, as it were, shut his own door on Tyneside, he will not wish to shut other doors on us as well.
In particular, I know that the councils are thinking of the possibility of aid from the Common Market. I wrote to Sir

Christopher Soames on this subject a few weeks ago and he replied that in principle FEOGA funds could be made available for a scheme of this nature.
The benefits of the scheme are permanent. We are talking of the long term. The present difficulties in the fishing industry, with which we are all aware, will surely be short term. Presumably the Government are not writing off the British fishing industry for the future.
I ask the Government to agree the scheme in principle, even if in the present state of the economy its implementation must be delayed. I assure the House that we in the North East have confidence in the future and confidence in the need for this scheme. I ask the Minister to share our confidence and to reconsider the decision.

4.20 a.m.

The Minister of State for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. E. S. Bishop): I am grateful to the honourable Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Trotter) for raising the question of the proposed new fish dock and quay at North Shields. I was glad to see for myself the present fish dock during my visit to ports in the North East recently when I was able to discuss the project with the fishermen in North Shields. It will help if I outline briefly the background to the Government's grant scheme for certain ports and the projected scheme at North Shields. I agree with the hon. Gentleman in his assessment of the history.
On 24th May 1972 the then Government announced a special programme of assistance to the five major fishing ports in England and Wales—North Shields, which is owned by the Port of Tyne Authority, together with Hull, Grimsby, Lowestoft and Fleetwood, which are owned by the British Transport Docks Board. In order to modernise old facilities and enable the fishing industries to meet the new conditions following accession to EEC, the Government offered a special 60 per cent. rate of grant, instead of the normal rate of grant of 20 per cent., provided that a scheme was approved within 12 months—by 24th May 1973—and that work started within 18 months—by 24th November 1973. On 25th May 1972 the Port of Tyne Authority was specially informed of this opportunity as


it had already been considering a major reconstruction of the fish dock. At North Shields itself a local working party was set up to include representatives of interested parties, the White Fish Authority and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The working party concluded that there were two choices—first, improvement of the existing facilities or, secondly, building a new harbour downstream where greater space would allow for expansion. The then local authority—the Borough of Tynemouth—would have been prepared to assist a financially sound scheme, especially as land required for some of the new site was then in its ownership.
In order to ensure that the new harbour project was technically feasible, it was necessary to conduct preliminary investigations related to wave effects and the strength of the rock underlying the foundations. These preliminary works have been grant-aided at a rate of 60 per cent. and, as it took time to carry them out, the time limit for approval of the scheme as a whole was deferred. The results of these preliminary works were available in the early autumn of 1973 and showed that the scheme was technically feasible.
The Port of Tyne Authority did not immediately proceed with the scheme because there were two obstacles. First, the authority did not have the necessary powers to carry out all the works. To remedy this, a private Bill was presented to Parliament in December 1973 and received the Royal Assent in December 1974. Secondly, the authority lacked the necessary finance. Even on the basis of a 60 per cent. grant from my Department, the Port of Tyne Authority foresaw difficulties in making ends meet, and has had to consider what action could be taken to meet the expected shortfall.
The delays inevitably involved an increase in the costs of the scheme due to general inflation. In 1972 the local working party estimated the cost at £2·5 million. In October 1973, after the preliminary works were finished, the Port of Tyne Authority, when applying for grant, estimated the cost of £3 million. But by the end of 1974 the costs were estimated at £4·3 million and, more recently, at £4·75 million.
Even if all the financial obstacles were to be overcome, work could not start before 1976 owing to the need to go out to tender and latest estimates of the cost by the time of completion are just over £7½ million. It will not be out of place if I remind the honourable Member that this cost would exceed the estimated costs of the works in the other four main harbours put together.
In addition to obtaining grant from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Port of Tyne Authority had to seek the consent of my right honourable Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment under Section 9 of the Harbours Act 1964. This consent is needed where the total costs of harbour works are estimated to exceed £1 million. Before granting his consent, my right honourable Friend seeks the advice of the National Ports Council, which reported on the projected dock scheme in January of this year, when the estimated cost was only £4·3 million and judged that the scheme would be viable only if users paid twice the existing dues, currently 3p. in the £; that grant would be available at the rate of 85 per cent; that landings would increase by between 3 per cent. and 10 per cent. per annum; and that the unit values of fish landed would increase by about 3 per cent. per annum.
This report raised immediate difficulties on the provision of capital as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, does not have power to pay grant in excess of 60 per cent. At this point, however, the new local authorities, the Metropolitan Borough of North Tyneside and the County of Tyne and Wear sought an opportunity to consider whether they could provide further assistance from their own funds. A short extension of the period for approval was granted and I understand that they have in mind a proposition which is based on 60 per cent. grant being made available by the Minister. But it is now clear beyond reasonable doubt that the project is unlikely to prove viable and hence approval for the purposes of 60 per cent. grant aid must be withheld.
Throughout the period since the inception of this special scheme, the Port of Tyne Authority has been told consistently that aid at the 60 per cent. rate cannot be taken for granted without


respect to the capital cost involved. So far, the only firm commitment has been to assist the essential preliminary works and consultants' fees.
We must now look at the scheme in the light of current circumstances in deciding whether grant at the rate of 60 per cent should be paid. When the grant application was received initially in 1973 there was something to be said in its favour.
Landings had increased by three-quarters on a volume basis over the past 10 years. More ships were using the harbour so that the existing berthing space was over-crowded and there was an increase in demand for shore-based processing facilities.
The case seemed favourable, but many of the assumptions upon which this view was based were made in the conditions of the boom years of 1972 and 1973. Since then, there has been a decline in landing. A comparison for the five months January to May shows a fall from 26,000 tons in 1974 to 21,950 tons in 1975. It is also well known to the hon. Member that, at the same time, market returns have declined since the middle of 1974 due to very low prices on the fish markets of Western Europe and North America. At the same time, operating costs have risen, led by the savage increase in the price of fuel since September 1973.
These considerations alone would provide reason for further reflection on a projected new harbour. But also, as I pointed out earlier, the estimated costs of the works have soared and may reach about £7½ million on completion. Therefore additional charges required from users to make the scheme financially viable would have to be much greater than the doubling postulated by the National Ports Council, and the factors I have mentioned must inevitably cast doubt on their ability to meet these charges.

Mr. Trotter: Has the Minister fully taken into account the undertaking by the Tyne and Wear council to guarantee that there will be no deficiency payment by the Port of Tyne Authority?

Mr. Bishop: I have taken note of this point.
I wish now to turn to other factors. Clearly the only way in which the scheme can be made viable for the Port of Tyne Authority is for the losses to be underwritten. This would be an open-ended commitment. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has no power to take on such a commitment. On the other hand, an open-ended commitment of this kind would be inappropriate for the local authority to take on, given the Government's policy of the containment of public expenditure. We cannot tell what the trend is likely to be in local authority costs.
In the circumstances, I must conclude that it would be wrong to approve this proposal for aid at the 60 per cent. rate of grant. That view takes account of the need for increased capital grant and increased running costs which would bear upon fishermen and all the other users of the port.

Mr. Trotter: Will the Minister explain why only £239,000 is said to be needed for the existing quay when in 1972, before the present high rates of inflation, the figure was put at £1 million?

Mr. Bishop: The difficulties involved are such that the major scheme, we expect, will be running in a few years at £7·5 million. One hopes that the rate of inflation will be contained but there is this big problem of capital. There is the danger of open-ended commitment which would have obvious consequences for anyone wanting to underwrite the losses. There is the effect that this will have upon the rates and upon those who have to use the port. I have visited this port, along with 16 other ports, recently. The industry is in a situation in which it is difficult to see it able to pay the much higher charges for the use of facilities.
On the alternative scheme mentioned by the working party, the benefits which are still available to North Shields are important. Firstly any approved works further to those already approved will rank for grant at the standard rate of 20 per cent. Secondly, the Port of Tyne Authority in 1973 submitted a modest scheme of improvement to existing facilities to my Department. It consists of improvements to the fish quay and improvements to the marketing building and some extension to it. On current


costs these improvements will amount to £236,000 and the offer to assist this project at the 60 per cent. grant rate still stands, leaving the Port of Tyne Authority to find only £94,400 provided costs do not increase during the course of construction. Further, this work can be put in hand relatively more quickly than the major scheme.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned a couple of other points to which I propose to refer. One is the effect on employment in processing, and so on. The number of on-shore jobs depends on the volume of fish landed. This, in turn, depends on a number of factors, and among these the fish dock facilities must rank for a comparatively small place. Much more important is the stock available to be fished, but this is part of a wider problem with which I cannot and dare not deal at this late hour.
I do not think it can be argued that the decision not to grant aid for the construction of a new fish dock has anything other than a comparatively small effect on employment in the fishing and allied industries, although one recognises the importance of the fishing industry to the port. Any effects on the construction

industry would have been short-term anyway.
The hon. Member mentioned FEOGA. I understand that the Port of Tyne Authority has applied for a grant for a fall-back scheme. I do not know the outcome of this application.
I share the regret of many people that inflation, rising costs, increasing costs to be borne by local authorities and higher charges to be met by those who use the dock are factors that have necessitated this kind of conclusion. However, looking ahead I think that this decision will be seen to be in the best interests of all concerned.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for giving me the opportunity this morning of putting forward some of the points that we bore in mind in coming to our decision. I hope that with the alternative scheme that I have suggested work can go ahead. My Department will be only too willing to co-operate in providing some of the better facilities that I have detailed in this short but important debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three nannies to Five o'clock a.m.